Poké Wars, Episode I
by SnowLucario
Summary: Lance Grant is just your typical 18-year-old who transforms into a Lucario in the middle of English class. Not thinking things could get any worse, he's soon whisked off to Hoenn to join the fight against the Empire. Along the way, he'll find friends, comrades in arms, and maybe even some love. Rated T. A Pokemon TF with a twist.
1. It All Starts Here

In the southern part of Sinnoh, surrounded by hills, fields, and forests, there was a high school.

East Pastoria High was its name, and it boasted several good programs for high schoolers in the Pastoria City area. It was a very large school, with roughly two thousand students. Some of these students found the environment rather overwhelming, since it was so big. Others did not; they loved the large environment.

However, the school did have very good counseling services for those who ended up needing them. This turned out to be a very large number, and the students would often seek out the help of said counselors whenever they had some sort of issue, either with another student, coursework, or life in general.

In one of the many classrooms in the junior wing, a young man sat at a desk, doodling on a sheet of paper he had taken from the back of the room. He was still paying attention, though; indeed, this was a way that he helped himself to pay attention to the teacher's lecture.

Lance Grant brushed some of his hair backwards, getting his bangs out of his eyes. On days in early summer like this one, they could become quite annoying; that was one annoyance that he did not need.

Mr. Ayer, their teacher, was writing some formulas on the board at present. He was giving a lecture about exponential growth, and how one calculated the amount of growth there had been.

"Lance?" Mr. Ayer announced, trying to make sure that his student was paying attention. Very often, he'd use one of his students as an example in one of his problems, so that he could make sure that they were listening.

"Yes" the boy replied. "What is it?"

"If Lance invests one hundred dollars in the bank, and it gives him four percent interest a year for five years, compounding yearly, how do we solve that?"

Most of the students sat at their seats, simply picking their nails, not knowing how to respond to such a question. This made it clear to Mr. Ayer that they may not have been paying attention to his lecture.

"Well, we actually have an equation that we can use to test that out. The formula is A equals P times the quantity of one plus one over N, to the power of N times T. In this equation, P is the starting amount, A is the answer, N is the rate of increase, and T is the number of years. You could also use T as twelve if the interest is compounding monthly".

Lance was, unlike he sometimes was, fully absorbed in the teacher's lecture today. He was finding it quite interesting, hanging onto Mr. Ayer's every word. He wished that the same could sometimes be said of the other students, but you couldn't always get everything you wanted.

"Yes...that's the way it goes. So, using the formula, we'll find that Lance has a total of $121.67 by the end of the five years. It does add up over time".

Behind himself, Lance could tell that the class clown, Xavier Whitacre, was busy making paper airplanes. Xavier, after he finished making a plane, would toss it towards the recycling bin, hoping to land it there.

The fact that there were several paper airplanes already littering the floor space already around the recycling bin betrayed that he hadn't been very successful at it.

"Let's see...if the interest is compounding _continuously,_ at every _instant,_ there is a different formula, the PERT formula. It's PE to the power of RT, where P is the starting amount, E is the mathematical constant, R is the rate of change, and T is the amount of time used".

There was more of the sound of a paper plane being made, and then the sound of it being thrown and whooshing through the air.

The plane hit the wall before doing a nosedive into the bin. It was very much audible, even though it had hit the wall fairly gently, all things considered.

Mr. Ayer turned around, looking very irritable indeed. Xavier was laughing now; he'd just succeeded at annoying the teacher, which, anyone who knew him was aware, was his main goal in life.

"Xavier, knock it off!" the teacher said angrily. The student who had been named did not appear fazed by this, as he kept on smiling.

"Back to mathematics...let's see here…".

Mr. Ayer kept going on and on about various mathematical formulas, but Lance paid him no heed.

He had begun to become aware of a pain in his chest area. Nothing was there, but it almost felt as though a baby elephant were sitting on him. He'd heard that this was what it felt like when a person's heart was slowing down, or something like that.

 _It's nothing,_ he told himself. _If it was something, I would know._

Lance tried to go back to paying attention to his teacher; after all, his GPA was at stake here. Focusing was the most important thing for him to do right now.

"And the half-life of carbon is 5,730 years, so we punch that into the equation and get this ridiculously small number…".

The discomfort in his chest hadn't gone away, and Lance was still finding it very difficult to focus on his teacher. It wasn't as though he was normally the type to be unable to pay attention in class, but today things felt different.

 _I KNOW something bad is about to happen,_ he told himself. _This pain is probably a good indicator of that._

The more he thought about it, the more clear it became to him that it was indeed pain he was dealing with, not merely discomfort. The pain in his chest felt quite sharp.

He needed to do some investigating.

Raising his hand, he asked, "Mr. Ayer?"

The math teacher turned to face Lance. "Yes, Lance?"

"May I please use the restroom?"

Mr. Ayer nodded, and Lance got up from his chair and headed over to the bathroom. He had no intention of using the toilet, though.

The reason he'd asked was so that he could have a look in the mirror. He remembered reading a book one time about a high school student who had transformed into a Lucario. Chest pain had been one of the first symptoms.

Lance walked into the boy's bathroom and looked into the mirror. Thankfully, there was nobody else in there, so he could have at least a small amount of privacy.

An 18-year-old boy looked back at him. A tall, broad-shouldered, 18-year-old boy. He had wavy, fluffy light brown hair and eyes the color of the ocean. Lance Grant scowled into the mirror, and the boy scowled back.

 _Okay,_ he thought. _I still LOOK the same. But what changes could be taking place inside of me? Somehow, I get the feeling that something's up, or else I wouldn't be feeling this way._

With nothing better to do, he walked back towards class, feeling incredibly apprehensive, as though he were walking on pins and needles. The song "Pins and Needles" by Billy Talonflame played in his head, but he dismissed it. This wasn't a situation like that. He wasn't doing anything dangerous.

 _So why does it feel like I'm doing something dangerous?,_ he thought. _I'm not. So it's ridiculous. So put a sock in it, Lance._

The teacher kept droning on and on about exponential growth functions, but Lance couldn't have cared less. All he wanted to know was what this all meant. Was he going to turn into a Lucario or something like that?

Soon, math class had ended, and he was very grateful to be able to get up again. The pain had subsided at this point, and he was able to focus a little more on the task at hand, something he was very much grateful for. He didn't think that he would have been able to handle another minute of the chest pain.

He arrived in English class, which had some of the same students as his math class, but not all of the same students. Of course, in high school, that was the way it was.

 _Thank Arceus I'll be done with junior year soon. Today's June 13, right? Yes, it was my birthday yesterday. I'm eighteen now._

At this moment, the presents he had gotten for his birthday had been all but forgotten. The uncomfortable feelings in his chest area had kind of pushed them out of his mind, and he didn't want to think about his presents anymore.

 _Or do I?,_ he thought. _It might help distract me from this._

The teacher, Mrs. Weed, began talking about some of the best literature of the 1920s, but Lance didn't really care. He was focused on right now, the year 201X, the minute that he was in pain.

As she was handing out a packet for the current chapter they were reading, the pain suddenly became more acute. Lance didn't know why this was, and he didn't particularly want to. He went back to reading about the chapter, and why the characters in the story had behaved a certain way.

His chest acted up again; it was a searing pain. It felt as though a white-hot knife were being inserted from his thorax and pushing out through his chest. After groaning and howling in pain, all the other students looked over at him, expressions of worry on their faces.

Lance suddenly felt pain in his legs. It wasn't quite as excruciating as what he was feeling in his chest, but it was still pretty bad. He could feel his bones _moving._

 _They're not breaking, they're MOVING,_ he told himself. _That's the difference._

He hadn't crashed his legs into anything, nor had anything come down on them. It appeared, at least to Lance, like nothing had happened to make him be in so much pain.

And then he saw his pants move upwards, before they ripped. His legs were growing, but only slightly.

Suddenly, the pain in his chest went from "very painful" to "excruciatingly painful". Lance was now gasping for air, and he wondered if he was having a heart attack.

He felt his hair recede, to be replaced by two large black blobs. Of course, it wouldn't be until later that he knew that they were black. Lance felt something sharp in his rear end, and he knew that he must have been growing a tail.

Speaking of his chest, the pain was now absolutely unbearable. For a few moments, he might have blacked out from the sheer intensity of it. Then, however, it became a little duller (but not by very much) as something stuck through his shirt.

"Ouch" he said vaguely, not knowing what else to say.

The other students started laughing. Those who had brought iPhones, iPads, or any other devices that contained cameras were snapping pictures, probably sending to their friends on Facebook, Snapchat, or whatever other social media sites one could think of.

It was highly embarrassing for Lance. He turned over to look at his friend Michael, and saw that even he was laughing. Now that Michael was laughing, Lance knew that things were bad.

Looking at his hands, he saw that they had become paws. A small spike rose out of each one, shaped rather like a cone.

He suspected what he had become, but he wasn't completely sure yet. He'd have to get some confirmation soon.

Lance raised his paw. "Yes?" Mrs. Weed asked him.

"May I please use the restroom?" he asked again. Hopefully, nobody would look at him weirdly. _Perhaps I should have waited until a few minutes later!,_ he thought, feeling absolutely desperate.

"Yes, but hurry. I'm in the middle of a lesson right now".

Again, the other students were laughing, but Lance paid them no mind. All he was determined to do was to see where this was going to go, because maybe, just maybe, it wasn't what he thought it was.

But he found the possibility of that quite remote. He knew the signs. He'd seen every sign of it but his face; it was time to see that side of it as well.

Bounding towards the bathroom as quickly as he could, he was once again grateful that nobody else was in the hallway. It would be weird to see a creature like him running through the hallway like a madman. Certainly, it would attract a lot of unwanted attention.

After he had walked into the bathroom, he looked at himself in the mirror. It wasn't the sight he had expected to see when he had first left for school this morning, but he wasn't surprised anymore.

Staring back at him was now a large, bipedal Pokemon with two black blobs next to its ears. Like a mask, there was black fur across the middle of its face, and its eyes were oval in shape. It looked extremely forbidding indeed, particularly with its large chest spike sticking out of its shirt.

Lance peeled off the shirt that he was wearing. Below it, there was nothing but fur in a tan color.

He had transformed into a Lucario, just the way he had expected.

* * *

He didn't know how long he stood in front of that mirror, completely and totally captivated by his new appearance, before he decided to leave the bathroom. It wouldn't do to be out of class for too long...or would it?

 _I really don't like them staring at me like that,_ Lance said to himself. _It should be a no-brainer. It really should be. Why should I stay at school?_

He got the feeling, however, that he shouldn't get behind in his education, even if he had transformed into a Lucario.

As soon as he stepped out of the bathroom, he saw a woman standing near him. A very familiar woman.

It was Mrs. Fox, the school nurse. "Lance Grant?"

"Yes?" Lance replied.

"I suppose that the rumors _are_ true after all" Mrs. Fox replied. "I had heard that you had transformed into a Lucario. Would you mind coming into my office in order to see what's going on?"

"No".

She led Lance into her office, which wasn't that far from the boy's room. "So...what happened? Do you know?"

Lance was feeling quite irritable at this point. "I really don't. All I know is that I was sitting in class, and then my chest started hurting really badly".

"How badly, though?" Mrs. Fox asked him. "This is important".

"Felt like a knife was being driven through my chest. Of course, come to think of it, that's not that surprising; I've got this nice chest spike to show for it".

"Indeed you do" the nurse replied. "Do you mind if I take some of your blood to test at the local hospital? Or do you want to go there yourself?"

That wasn't a hard question. The last thing Lance wanted was to go out in public as a Lucario, and risk getting stared at and judged by millions of people.

 _Then again,_ he thought to himself, _millions of people are already going to know about it. It's not as though an eighteen-year-old student just transforms into a Lucario every single day._

Still, it was too big of a risk to take.

"Let's do it here" he said. "Take some blood from me. If you don't mind me asking, what are you going to test it for?"

"We're going to use the test to see what kinds of abnormalities there may be in your blood" she replied. "If there is some factor that causes a person to transform into a Pokemon, that would be news to me, but who knows? There might just be one".

Lance shivered at the possibility. If a lot more people were going to transform into Pokemon...that couldn't be good, could it?"

"Anyway...hold still" Mrs. Fox said, grabbing a needle out of her cabinet. "You're not afraid of needles, are you?"

The boy-turned-Lucario shook his head. He was used to getting shots at the doctor's office; how could this be any different?

The answer: It wasn't. After a quick pinch, and some of his blood going into the needle, it was over. That was, indeed, how Lance got through all of the times that he had to draw blood for an exam, or get a vaccination; remind himself that the pain would be very much temporary.

"Okay" Mrs. Fox said. "I'll send this vial of blood to the hospital's laboratory for testing. You should probably go back to class. Or would you rather go home?"

 _That_ was a very hard decision for Lance. On one hand, he didn't particularly like the idea of going back to class and exposing himself to everyone else. On the other hand, the only way to deal with the problem long-term would be to face it head-on.

And, in general, he preferred permanent solutions to temporary ones.

"I'm going back to class" he said.

* * *

 **It's SnowLucario here with a new TF story! This one combines some ideas that I've had for a while, and I wanted to put into writing. I will work on this in conjunction with the Lucas's Adventure franchise. If you enjoyed this chapter, I hope you will check that story out and help me get it to 100 reviews. I also hope you might review this story as well, to tell me what you thought of it.**

 **Until then, I'll see you next time.**


	2. Anything But Normal

**Welcome back to this story! Thank you to everyone who has reviewed thus far; I really appreciate it. Reviews keep me going.**

 **I hope you enjoy this chapter. It was a fun one to write, and, thus far, writing two stories at once isn't completely and totally overwhelming. It remains to be seen how long I can keep up this pace for, but, for now, enjoy!**

* * *

The rest of the day felt interminable to Lance.

Of course, that wasn't entirely due to factors that had only started to exist today. He genuinely disliked school, finding it quite boring. He understood the importance of getting a good education, but that didn't mean he had to enjoy it along the way.

Now, he was a Lucario, and that meant that everybody was staring at him. Lance, often the relatively shy guy who didn't like to be the center of attention, was now the center of attention. And this was his worst nightmare.

Thankfully, most of the teachers didn't allow the use of cell phones during class, which meant that the other students couldn't take even more pictures of him to post on social media. Which was great and all, but there were still plenty of pictures that were no doubt circulating on the Internet at the moment.

Finally, the day ended, and Lance could at last get out of class. He took the back stairway of the school in order to avoid detection. _Avoid detection_ might not have been the best phrase to use, simply because it was a large school, and it wasn't like he could make it so that nobody saw him. Things just didn't work that way.

Because Lance only had his learner's permit, not his license, he had to walk home from school. This wasn't a problem, since it really wasn't that far away from his house. Even so, he decided to take most of the back streets, just because he didn't want to be seen.

Even with all of his most careful precautions, he heard at least thirty or forty snaps as he walked past people. While Lucario were native to Sinnoh, most of them lived in the mountains north of here, not in the suburbs of Pastoria City. As a result, when the people came across the Lucario walking along the avenue, they had good reason to assume that it was the guy who had transformed.

 _Do they all know that quickly, though?,_ Lance asked himself. Surely the other students at his school hadn't had the time to upload the videos to PokeTube yet, had they? It took a while to do that...but long enough that nobody would have had the time to?

It didn't matter. If he had luck bad enough to turn into a Lucario in the middle of English class, his luck was surely also bad enough that it could be known around the world at this point.

"Hey, Lance!" his neighbor, Mr. Bradley, exclaimed. "I heard of what happened today. Sorry to hear that".

"It's fine" the young man said. "Really, it's pretty cool being a Lucario. For one, I love having this chest spike; I can use it to maul people".

Perhaps those had been the wrong words to say to his neighbor. For a second, Mr. Bradley looked as though he was going to swing his shovel at Lance, in order to try and knock the Lucario boy unconscious.

Then, he said, "That's pretty cool. I hope that you don't try and do that to any of us, though; I don't think most people would appreciate getting mauled".

Lance chuckled. "No, I really don't think that they would".

After that, he left his neighbor to his own devices and walked up to his home.

His younger sister, Michaela, typically wasn't home by this point; she always stayed late at school for play practice. She went to different classes and had a different lunch hour than him, so they hadn't seen each other over the course of the school day. That said, she did have well-connected friends, so it was a certainty that she had found out about her brother's transformation.

 _I don't care what Michaela thinks,_ Lance decided. _She's my sister, and I love her, but it doesn't go any further than that. I just hope she's willing to accept me for who I am; a Lucario now._

The thing was, Lance found it fairly cool to be a Lucario. He might not have been able to use a lot of aura-based moves yet, but he could still speak. There was one downside, however.

As a Lucario, he was essentially wearing a large blue-and-black fursuit. The weather outside was quite hot, perhaps ninety-five degrees or so; the previous day had been the hottest one of the year thus far.

As soon as Lance got inside, he went into the kitchen and retrieved the pitcher of iced lemonade from the fridge. He poured himself a tall glass of it, gulping it down like a child dying of thirst. It tasted so good in this weather, and in his current condition, that he considered pouring himself another glass. However, he decided against it.

He went to sit down on the couch, but he accidentally sat on his tail.

Eyes watering, he yelped in pain. Sitting on one's own tail was a sensation that he didn't want anyone else to experience, ever, no matter how much he hated that person. It was immensely painful.

As soon as he had gotten his tail out of the way, Lance turned on the TV and decided to watch his favorite movie, based on a true story: _Lucario and the Mystery of Mew._ After putting it into the disc drive, he waited for it to turn on.

 _I hope the reporters don't come here before the movie's over,_ he thought. _That would be very bad indeed._

Pushing that thought out of his mind, Lance attempted to just enjoy the movie. After all, it was his favorite, and he figured that it might help him to get past the reality that was his life.

He tried to get absorbed in the setting, but the thought that the news media would come to his home to capitalize on the story was just too pervasive.

Even so, he was able to laugh as Meowth said, "Personally, I prefer dining to dancing". He'd seen the movie many times by now, but that line always got to him.

Unfortunately, it was also the last line that he heard before the knock on the door.

 _It's a little early to be Michaela, and my parents aren't supposed to be home from work for a while...which can only be one thing._

 _The news media._

Reluctantly, Lance got up off his very comfortable couch and walked over to the door, head down.

The very instant he opened the door, that was the very instant he was bombarded with cameras.

"I hear that you transformed into a Lucario" one of them, the one from SNN, said. "Can you please tell us more about what that transformation felt like?"

Lance was seized by a sudden urge to say something that he knew was false, but might keep them off of him for at least a few seconds. Impulsively, he replied, "That's fake news!"

"Excuse me?" a man from Vulpix News asked. "Fake news? We have a Lucario right before us who lives at the same address as Lance Grant, and you're telling me that it's fake news that he transformed into one?"

The gig was up, almost as soon as it had been started. "Okay" he replied. "I'll admit it; it's true. I turned into a Lucario. What's the big deal?"

"It matters", the man from Vulpix News said, "because there are a lot of things going on in the other regions. You might live in just this small corner of Sinnoh, but things are much larger and greater than just the Pastoria City area".

"I would know that very well" Lance replied. "My family travels quite a lot. I've been to Kanto and Johto before".

"That is not what we asked you" a woman from the LAB network said. "What we wanted to know is, how did you manage to transform? What kind of drugs are you taking?"

Lance listed the medications he was currently taking for anxiety. Somehow, he didn't think those would interest the woman. And he was right.

"I'm not talking _those_ kinds of drugs. Prescription drugs do not count. I'm talking drugs that are generally illegal".

"Then no" he replied. "I have not been experimenting with drugs". _And maybe you have,_ he thought but did not say. _To suggest that I have been doing that is quite outlandish._

"Let me take over" the man from Vulpix News said. "Mr. Grant, what did it feel like to transform? Did it hurt?"

"A lot, actually" the young man replied. "Imagine a white-hot knife sticking its way through your chest the whole time, and your bones elongating, and hair sprouting all over the place...yeah, it's generally not the most fun way to spend a day".

"Ha! I like that" the man said. "That's actually really clever".

"Um...I was being dead serious" Lance replied.

"What did you do after you had transformed?" the man asked him.

Lance saw no reason to lie about that. "I went to the bathroom in order to make sure that it really had happened, to look in the mirror. After that, I went to the nurse, who took some of my blood".

"And after that?"

"I went back to class. I think that will be all - I'm kind of sick of talking to you guys. The news media is always so annoying sometimes".

"We're just trying to help" the woman from the LAB network replied.

"If you really wanted to help me", Lance replied, "you would leave me be. After all, I still have some homework to do, and I have a life to live. So I would appreciate it if you let me have some "me" time right now, okay?"

"Of course, sir" the man from Vulpix News replied. He stepped away, meaning that the woman from the LAB network was now the only one standing in front of Lance.

"So, Lance", she said, "is there any way that you can tell me anything else? Or do you just want me to leave?"

"Leave" the boy replied. "Leave, and don't ever come back. I don't have the answers to your questions. Maybe I never will. But you need to give me some space, okay?"

"Okay" the woman from the LAB network told him. "I guess we'll be going now".

"That's very nice of you, thanks" Lance replied. He considered making an Aura Sphere in his paw in order to persuade them to leave faster, but he reminded himself that he didn't really know how to use aura yet. It would certainly take some getting used to, so he could be excused for not wanting to try that.

As soon as he was confident that the reporters had all left, their various vans having disappeared into the distance, Lance headed back inside. He didn't really know what was going to happen now, but it caused him more than a little anxiety.

 _They'll all know that I'm a Lucario now,_ he thought to himself. If things had seemed bad before, they were ten times worse now.

 _My location just got broadcast to the entire world! If there are any poachers around watching that, they'll make mincemeat out of me!_

Lance ran through the house to his backyard. Looking into the distance, he noted that a fence blocked the next yard from him being able to run into it. Of course, he could probably have jumped over the fence in the state he was in, but he wasn't going to do that.

He'd been tired before he had gotten home, but the knowledge that everybody knew where he was, as well as that he was a Lucario, gave him the adrenaline he needed to spring off the deck and start running laps around the yard.

Lance wasn't particularly one for running, only doing it on their treadmill to stay in shape. He didn't like to run outside, particularly not in weather this warm.

Even so, he began sprinting around the yard, around where their swingset had used to be, past the trees that lined parts of it.

He only stopped after fifty or so laps to collapse in the middle of the yard, his tongue hanging out of his mouth like a dog. He was exhausted, completely unable to do anything else.

For a while, he just looked up, careful to avoid staring at the sun. He didn't know if his new Lucario eyes would be able to withstand that, but he didn't want to risk that. Nothing was worth risking that.

 _Oh, boy,_ he thought. _I really am a freak. I can't believe that this actually happened._

He must have been lying there for about fifteen minutes, completely drained, when he decided to head inside in order to check his phone.

 _They can't be tracking my phone, can they? Isn't wiretapping illegal in Sinnoh, or pretty much anywhere else, for that matter? I really don't want to risk that, but at the same time…_

Eventually, Lance decided that the potential reward would be greater than the risk. He could go and see what sort of impact the news of him turning into a Lucario had had on the rest of the world.

 _Actually, I might as well check my computer,_ he decided. _That's going to give me a lot more answers._

His phone could surf the Internet, yes, but it was a lot slower and harder to use for this purpose. Really, his laptop was far superior.

Grabbing his MacBook Air from his backpack, Lance went over to PokeTube and typed in, "Guy turns into Lucario".

Almost immediately, several results came up. The first one must have been filmed by Xavier, the same guy who had been throwing paper airplanes in Mr. Ayer's class. At least, that was the vantage point from which it appeared to have been filmed.

Lance clicked on that one. It took a few seconds to load, time Lance used by thinking despondently about how he could not yet create an Aura Sphere. A real tragedy, that was, although he was sure that it wouldn't last for too long. Either he'd figure out how to use aura, or how to turn back. He was pretty confident in that.

As soon as the video loaded, Lance sat back on his couch, thinking about just how alarming it was that it had happened.

The video perfectly captured every detail of the transformation, even though the quality wasn't the best. _Hopefully, some of them might think it's fake. Maybe...a guy can dream, right?_

 _Right?_

He had hopes, but he also had fears that those hopes would be dashed. The video already had a pretty sizable number of views (into the millions), and, according to the number at the bottom of the video screen, a little over six thousand comments.

Lance was absolutely flabbergasted by this. It had only been a couple of hours since his transformation, and yet news had already gone viral. Already, it was likely that it would be on the evening news.

He went back to the TV, where the movie was still paused at the sight of Meowth tipping a plate of food into his mouth. _Don't worry about it,_ he told himself. _It's going to be fine._

Lance changed the channel; after everything that had just happened, all he wanted to do was to look at the 4:00 news. If his story was the first one that appeared...he wasn't going to be happy about that at all.

Sure enough, the news anchor was going over a clip of him transforming into a Lucario. The headline was, "STUDENT TRANSFORMS INTO LUCARIO IN MIDDLE OF ENGLISH CLASS".

He saw that his best friend, Tom, was being interviewed on the situation. "Do you know what happened, Tom?" the other boy was being asked.

"No, I really don't" Tom replied, looking at the news anchor over his glasses. "I just saw him groan in pain as he stood up, and he had transformed into a Lucario. As to why it happened, your guess is as good as mine".

"I see" the anchor said. "Well, I suppose that we will have answers soon enough. After all, that is the way it works with developing stories, and this very much is a developing story".

Tom looked genuinely dismayed. Lance knew that he cared about him, and he wouldn't like for me to be gawked at like some animal in a zoo. Unfortunately, he was afraid that he would have no power to stop that from happening.

 _Whatever,_ Lance told himself. _Once the DNA test comes in, we'll know what happened...hopefully. Maybe. I don't quite know._

One thing was for sure: If he ever became a human again, he wouldn't take that for granted. Because things could always be a lot worse, and he was finding that out for himself right now.

Just then, the phone rang. Lance was seized by the usual urge to say, "I'll get it!" However, he remembered that he was the only one home, so it would have been a little weird to do so.

Picking the phone up, he said, "Hello?"

"Hello, is this the home of Lance Grant?"

"Yes" Lance replied. "If you don't mind me asking, what do you want from me?"

"Your DNA test came back. There is absolutely no evidence that Lance Grant has ever been anything other than a Lucario. He's a full Lucario, and it doesn't seem to matter that he wasn't one only a few hours ago".

Those words were fairly chilling to Lance. He didn't want to think that all of his ties to being a human were completely gone. At the same time, however, he wanted to believe what was true.

"Okay" Lance replied.

The woman from the hospital kept talking, and Lance eventually hung up, sick of all of it. He was sick of all of this; he just wanted to get upstairs and do his homework, as if it was just a normal day after school.

Of course, things were anything but normal now.

* * *

 **Yep, so the news media now knows that Lance has transformed into a Lucario. I think that things are going to go just perfectly for him from this moment forward, don't you think?**

 **Of course, if it really was that way, it wouldn't be Poké Wars. Believe me, things are going to go wrong very, VERY fast.**


	3. An Opportunity

**All right! I've gotten Chapter 3 up, and thank you all for over 100 views! I'm definitely pleased to have all of this support, and I'm greatly looking forward to gaining more support for this story. Because this is going to be a fairly long one, perhaps not as long as Lucas's Adventure: Book A, but still fairly long.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

It wasn't too much longer before Lance's mother and sister got home. His father typically worked late, and therefore wouldn't be at home for a while more.

"Hey" Lance said.

Lance's mother ran forward and threw her arms around her son. "So the news is true. You really have transformed into a Lucario".

His heart dropped. "How did you find out?"

"At work, they gave us an emergency briefing in the middle of the day. They do that whenever there's a really important story they need to update us on; I think that this definitely qualified".

Lance chuckled. "Yeah, I guess it does".

"More importantly, how are _you_?" his mother asked him. "It must have been really hard for you to deal with that in front of all your classmates".

"Yeah, well...that's the way it goes" Lance replied. "Although I will say that the reporters came to the house earlier".

His mother gasped. "They did?"

Her son nodded. "They did. And I answered some of their questions, but not all of them. Don't worry too much; I think things are going to be fine".

Of course, Lance was lying to her. Things weren't going to be fine; in fact, they were going to go horribly wrong. The more he thought about it, the more obvious that became.

"Well, I was about to make dinner. Do you want to help me?" Mrs. Grant asked Lance.

The young man considered saying yes. After all, when you didn't help her with dinner after she offered, she would generally not be very happy with you. Lance, for as much as he loved his mother, never wanted to get on her bad side.

But then he noticed his paws, and how they felt extremely awkward. Besides, he wasn't used to doing a lot of cooking on his own.

"No" he replied. "I'm sorry, but, the way I am now, I don't think that I would be able to do it".

"I figured" his mother said. "No matter; that's okay. I think you'll want to get started on your homework, in any case".

"Great minds think alike" Lance replied. After that, he turned around and walked up to his room, trying to be as light on his feet as possible, since the stairs could be quite creaky.

Once he got up to his room, however, he had a difficult time working on the problems.

It wasn't that he didn't have the intellectual capability to do so; indeed, he was often considered one of the smarter students in his school, even though his grades were nothing to write home about. Rather, he was constantly consumed by thoughts of what might happen next, what it might mean that he had just turned into a Lucario.

At one point, he thought he spotted something outside his window. Turning around in his desk chair and looking to the side, he saw that it had been a bird staring at him. This bird appeared to be stalking him.

 _Whatever. It's not like that bird is going to come in here and tear me apart. If it were a huge flock of them, maybe…_

He decided not to dwell on that, and to continue working on his homework.

Just as he was working on a particularly difficult problem, the doorbell rang. Even though he couldn't see the front walk from this vantage point, Lance was pretty sure he knew who it was.

 _I'm coming, Dad,_ he thought, hopping out of his chair and heading down the stairs to meet him.

Lance's father was a tall, broad-shouldered man with thinning, dark brown hair and glasses. He definitely looked imposing to just about anybody who could happen to come across him, but Lance saw him as someone else; his dad.

"Hey, Dad" Lance said.

"Lance? I almost didn't recognize you, even though I'd been told what happened!"

"It's fine" his son replied. "I'm just kind of surprised that it all happened, honestly; I never thought that I'd turn into a Lucario, and that it'd be on the news and everything".

"I know" his father said. "And we'll talk about it at the dinner table. There are quite a few things that we'll need to go over".

"What kinds of things?" Lance asked his father. As far as he knew, there was nothing new that had changed in the house, other than the fact that Lance had become a Pokemon.

"Just things that you'll need to do differently now that you have become a Lucario" Mr. Grant replied. "We'll talk about them when we get to dinner".

Lance was in suspense, but he did have a good feeling what his father was going to say. He assisted his parents in setting the table, with dishes such as steak, salad, and bread to be dipped in olive oil.

Once they were all at the table, Mr. Grant revealed what he had been about to say.

"At work, we were given the briefing on what had happened. Believe me, it was very surprising when I learned that it was my son that it had happened to".

 _Gulp,_ Lance thought. Now, everybody at his father's work knew what had happened.

 _It's no big deal,_ he tried to tell himself. _After all, everybody in the world knows now. Why should it matter that my father's colleagues do?_

Even so, it wasn't a pleasant thought to have. He didn't want his father's work friends, many of whom he had never met, to know about his transformation. Again, though, there was nothing he could do about it.

"From here on out, Lance, you are grounded, until you have once more become a human".

"Oh, really?" Lance replied. "Do I have to put my life on hold because of this?"

"Yes, unfortunately, you kind of do" his mother replied. "But it really is for your own good. After all, we don't know how safe you would be outside of the home. You can still go to school and all that, but, if you're going to leave the house, I would want for there to be someone else guarding you".

Lance wanted to insist that that would never happen, not in a trillion years. But when he looked at his mother, he saw that she was being deadly serious. This wasn't an argument he could win; his position basically centered on performing as much damage control as possible.

Before he could speak up, Michaela did so for him.

"I, for one, agree with Mom" she said. "I really think that you should stay with a trusted adult".

"But I _am_ an adult" Lance replied, which was true. He'd just turned 18 yesterday, and was supposed to register to vote in Sinnoh's elections today. For obvious reasons, that had not happened.

"She means someone older than you" his father replied, which wasn't helping matters.

"Look", Lance said, "I'm not three years old anymore. I no longer need to be followed by an adult wherever I go. I can at least walk to school on my own, don't you all agree?"

"I suppose I do" his mother replied. "But I think that you should bring your iPhone with you at all times".

"Don't worry. I always do".

Dipping a piece of bread in olive oil that Michaela had mixed up earlier, his father said, "Maybe, but I still think you should take precautions. I get that you wouldn't want to attract even more attention than you already have. But you need to look at it from our perspective".

"From what perspective, Dad?" Lance replied angrily. He knew that he needed to watch his temper; that was occasionally a problem for him, having a short temper.

"We see you as our son, as someone who may need protection" his father replied. "Now that you have transformed into a Lucario, I really would feel better if you had a guard or something".

"I will not allow myself to be _guarded_ by anybody" Lance said. "I can stay safe on my own, thank you very much. Things are going to be all right".

Of course, Lance was just trying to convince himself as usual. He didn't know that for sure.

"Well, dinner's just about over" said his mother. "Michaela, you can help me clean up the kitchen. Lance, I remember when I had the talk with you; I don't think that this is anything you ever expected to be a part of your teenage years, did you?"

The Lucario boy chuckled. "Yeah...not something I thought would happen, not in a million years. It's fine, though. We're going to keep it all under control".

After that, he excused himself from the table in order to get back to work on his homework. Arceus knew that he needed the time.

However, the more he tried to focus on his work, the harder it became. Every time he squinted in order to focus (no, he didn't need glasses, squinting just helped him focus), he saw the scene in class earlier. When he had transformed.

In spite of this, he managed to finish his math homework, and then he moved on to history. During the next two hours, he cursed the fact that he had to do so much homework; when one really thought about it, you had school for a reason. Was doing all of this work outside of school really necessary?

 _Whatever,_ Lance thought. _It's not as though that's my biggest worry right now._

As soon as Lance finished with his homework, he decided to take a bath. That was something he did sometimes when he was stressed; he sure was stressed now.

He enjoyed the bath itself, but drying his fur off afterwards was quite a task. Much of the remaining water had embedded itself deeper into his fur, which still made the top fur wet. As a result, he had to be extremely thorough with the towel.

Lance was pretty sure that you could dry your fur off with aura, but he didn't want to try that out just yet. Not when he was still getting used to his new form.

Right after that, he went to bed. Normally, he slept with pajamas on, but he slept in the nude this time. The fur covered all of his private parts, so he didn't really need clothes; there was no reason to remain modest.

Unfortunately, as soon as he drifted off, he sank into a nightmare.

* * *

The weather was unbearably hot and humid. The sticky air rang with the sound of cicadas chirping in the distance.

Lance ran, in his Lucario form, through a large field of grass. He'd only been down to this region once before, but he knew where he was. There was absolutely no denying it.

He was in the jungles of Hoenn. That would explain why it was so hot; indeed, it was hotter than it had been back in suburban Pastoria.

 _Not surprising,_ he thought. _Humidity no doubt is a factor in that._

Lance knew that it was only just a dream, so he wasn't that scared. At the same time, he had a feeling that he _should_ be scared, that something was going to go wrong here.

 _Don't worry,_ he told himself. _This is a dream, not a prophecy._

But what if it was?

After he'd been running for about five minutes, there was the sound of thunder, followed by the rapport of gunshots.

Lance had never been in the midst of a combat situation before, but he knew a thing or two about how to avoid gunfire. Within ten yards, he fell into a pool of muddy water. A swamp.

 _Well, this sucks,_ he thought. _Guess I'm not going to stay dry after all._

Of course, that wasn't going to happen anyway. In the jungle, the humidity had to be at least three hundred percent. You simply weren't going to get away with only a little bit of sweat; no, you would sweat bullets.

 _Bullets…_

Lance was forced to duck as a bullet sailed over his head. Even with him ducking, it missed nicking his aura-sensing organs by inches. The bullet slammed into a tree a decent distance away, causing the tree to fall down.

The tree swayed, before crashing down on top of Lance, completely obliterating his chest spike.

Lance groaned in pain. If growing a chest spike had been excruciatingly painful, this was ten times worse. It wasn't something that he would have wished on his worst enemy; the pain was terribly intense.

Eventually, he was able to open his eyes and realize the truth: That this was all a dream.

Lance sat bolt upright in bed. Looking at the clock, he saw that it was only a few minutes before his alarm was set to go off. He always got up at six, and the clock read 5:56.

 _Might as well get up now,_ he told himself. _It's not like I'd be able to go back to sleep after something like that._

After doing a few stretches, Lance went into the bathroom and brushed his fang. Walking downstairs, he saw no reason to wake anyone else up; it was clear to see that the rest of the house was still asleep.

 _It's just as well, really. Otherwise, they'd be heckling me about how I need to have someone escort me to school. How old do they think I am? Eight?_

After making himself a quick bowl of cereal, he decided to go get the paper from the front yard. He had a pretty good idea what the front page's headline was going to be.

His neighbor from across the street, Mr. Enfield, was doing the same, walking hand-in-hand with his two-year-old daughter. Said daughter looked extremely scared to find that a Lucario was staring back at her.

"Daddy! Get him away from me!" she yelled in her childish toddler voice.

"Don't worry; I don't bite" Lance replied. "It'll be fine".

"Okay…" said Mr. Enfield. "Karla, he's just a boy who turned into a Lucario. He's not actually a Lucario. And he's not going to harm us, okay?"

Karla frowned, but she didn't say anything else. After that, Mr. Enfield led his daughter back indoors.

 _Wow...that was crazy. Good thing that I'm not some vicious Lucario who's going to bite her to bits. Otherwise, Karla would be dead. And her dad, too._

Lance didn't allow himself too much more time to think about it as he continued the two-mile walk to school. He could have biked there, but he figured that it was better to appreciate life at a slower pace. It felt good to be walking, with the light breeze on his face, even though it was quite hot already.

When he got to school, he looked around and found his friend Michael. However, Michael didn't appear to notice him.

 _He must think I'm a freak,_ Lance realized. _Well, that fucking sucks. I really wish he'd realize that it's not my fault I'm a fucking Lucario._

One thing that it was necessary to say about Michael was that, once he had made up his mind, it was very difficult to get him to change it. As a result, he would probably always think of Lance as a freak, even if he managed to turn back.

 _Oh, well,_ he thought. _Who needs him, really?_

The bell rung to go inside, and Lance knew that it was going to be a living hell. Perhaps not as bad as being in the middle of the jungles of Hoenn under fire, but still pretty bad.

It was, mercifully, a Friday. After today, he would have a weekend to recover from the day, and, judging by the many stares he was getting, he would most definitely need it.

His first class was history. With note-taking, he had a few problems, but he was able to make it through just fine. It was a little frustrating, however, to hold the pen the way a Lucario would.

The history teacher tried to make it easier for him, but it was a double-edged sword. While he did slow down and allow Lance to copy down all of the notes, the extra time was quite embarrassing for him, as he was the only Lucario in the room, with everyone else staring daggers at him.

The next class was science. Much like history, writing and typing were slightly difficult. Thankfully, there were no labs today; Lance was very often clumsy, and being a Lucario only made things more difficult for him. He didn't want to think about how the liquids might react with his fur, because he had once singed off a corner of his pant legs with boiling water. That had been as a human.

At break period, he sat alone in the corner of the courtyard. As it was, he wasn't the most sociable person in the school, and now he was more isolated than ever before.

Next came gym. That had been the class he was looking forward to; he'd be able to show off his skills as a Lucario. He figured that he'd be able to dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge better than he could in his human body.

He thought that, but he was wrong. Dead wrong.

Even as a human, he was a fairly easy target. In spite of being fast, he was tall and broad-shouldered. What was more, the balls he did throw were often caught by a player on the other team, meaning that he was put out even more frequently than his dodging record suggested.

 _This sucks,_ he thought, as he was put out by a caught ball on the other end for the fourth time that game. He was stuck sitting there, waiting for the doctor to tag him. Once that happened, he could get up and continue, but keep attracting more attention. _Make it stop already!,_ he wanted to yell, but didn't for obvious reasons.

After that, most of the rest of his classes passed without much incident, although he did get more than a few stares. Honestly, he was getting sick of all those stares, but it wasn't like he could do anything about them. He was a Lucario, after all, having been a human just over a day prior.

When he finally got out of class, he ran away from the school, determined that he wouldn't be seen by any of his classmates until Monday.

Along the way, nothing of major note happened, although Lance kept praying that Mr. Enfield wouldn't be out on the front walk with Karla again. If that was the case, things weren't going to be good at all.

Lance got home and used the hidden key to let himself in. After that, he looked around the house for any signs of life.

"Mom? Dad? Michaela?" he called. He didn't think that any of them were there, since no cars were in the driveway, and, what was more, all of the lights in the house had been off. However, a guy could hope, right?

"Don't move" said a gruff voice near him.

Lance's heart stopped. _Someone had broken into his home._

He refrained from doing so, convinced that the owner of the voice must have a gun or something; that would explain why he sounded so confident. He certainly didn't want to get shot.

"What's going on?" Lance asked nervously. He tried not to sound too defiant; he didn't want to scare the man into using the gun on him, if he had it. He could tell it was a man; the voice was just too deep.

"We need to take you to headquarters" the man said. "If that is okay with you. Your family has already been notified of this".

 _My family? How could they have ever offered their consent to THIS? Me being taken to some headquarters by some mysterious man? Why did they think this would be a good idea?_

"What is it for?" Lance asked. He very much wanted to know why they wanted him, and why his family had clearly given their assent to it.

"We have a big opportunity to tell you about. You need to come with us".

The man stepped out from the pantry, and Lance was able to see who it was.

It was a police officer, wearing a typical blue jacket, as well as the typical hat that cops wore. He had an extremely stern expression on his face, as though he were angry at Lance.

"Did I do something wrong?" Lance asked. "Last time I checked, I didn't commit any crimes".

"You're not in trouble" the cop said, although, judging by his tone of voice, he sure seemed to wish that Lance was in trouble.

 _Fuck you,_ Lance thought. He wanted to break away, but he could tell that doing so would not have a good result.

"You'll have to ride in the police car to the station" the cop said. "We can't have you just walking or driving yourself. Do you have your license?"

"No, just my permit".

"Well, in any case, we can't have things looking too suspicious, so you're just going to ride there with us. Once we're there, we'll tell you all about what's going to happen. Understood?"

Lance nodded. He understood, all right.


	4. Sheriff's Tower

**Here is the chapter. I stayed home from school today due to an appointment I had. It was a good day - went out to lunch with my mother, helped her bake a clementine almond cake, and, most importantly for you guys, got a large amount of writing done for both this and Lucas's Adventure: Book A.**

 **This is my favorite chapter thus far. I think you will see why once we get into it.**

* * *

The police officer insisted on handcuffing Lance as soon as he had gotten into the car.

"Why?" Lance asked. "I'm not under arrest, so why do you need to do that?"

"It's because that's standard protocol" the man replied. "My superior will, until you are declared to have been taken into custody, believe that you are dangerous. It's not something I am necessarily happy about, but that's just the way it is".

"I see" Lance replied. He wasn't happy about it either.

The fact that Lance had been handcuffed made the ride a lot more unpleasant. Even though there were a great many Lucario in Sinnoh, he had a feeling that almost everybody watching would know it was him. It made him feel rather like an animal in a zoo, being gawked at by all of the children who passed by.

They turned onto the highway. "My superior is named Chief Billy Talent. His legal name's William, but we call him Billy. I expect you to refer to him as Chief Talent at all times".

"Got it".

Once they were on the highway, things were moving much faster. Lance felt more and more uncomfortable in his seat, however. They were now in an even more populated area, and there was absolutely no doubt that someone on Twitter would have sent out a tweet saying that they'd just seen Lance Grant led away in a cop car.

Lance couldn't help but look at the countryside of Sinnoh just passing by. He knew that Pastoria City was built on a series of fens, or low-lying swampland. Due to this, it occasionally flooded, although this thankfully didn't happen very often. Were it to happen more often, that would have very deleterious effects on the city's economy.

"Here we are" the cop said eventually, as they pulled up in front of a building that was designated SHERIFF'S TOWER.

"This is it?" Lance asked incredulously. He'd been downtown many times, but he'd never seen Sheriff's Tower in person, even though it was a well-known landmark in Pastoria City. What was more, he'd expected it to be far more majestic than this, more worthy of its title. The way it appeared now, it just looked kind of lame.

"Yes, this is it" the cop replied. "Chief Talent's expecting you, and, let me tell you something, kid; it's best to show him some respect. You don't want him to disrespect you, do you?"

Lance shook his head. "Absolutely not".

"Okay, then. The office is on the fourth floor, up the stairs. It's at the end of the hallway; you can't miss it".

The young man nodded and walked into the building. It was a fairly casual-looking location, not at all as formal as one would think a sheriff's office would be. It looked more or less like the inside of a preschool.

"I like this place" he said aloud. It appeared quite friendly, even though he knew that it was meant to be deceptive. It couldn't possibly be genuine, the way this place was decorated.

After finding the stairwell, he ascended the stairs. Normally, four flights of stairs would leave him slightly out of breath, having a difficult time overcoming the ache in his legs. However, as a Lucario, he found that he had a lot more stamina.

 _That's good,_ he thought. _If I have more energy, that's always a plus._

Once he got to the fourth floor, he found the door at the end of the hallway, just the way the cop had described it.

The door was wooden, and there was a golden star in the middle, near the top of the door. On the star was engraved, _SHERIFF WILLIAM TALENT._

Lance knocked on the door, apprehensive. _Remember, you're not in trouble,_ he told himself. _It's some special offer. And you'd better take it, because you never want to piss a cop off._

"Enter" said a voice on the other side. After he was told to do so, he opened the door and walked into the room.

The office was small and messy, with a desk in the middle. Several filing cabinets were placed behind the desk, packed to the brim with various papers of what could be assumed to be various topics. The flag of Sinnoh, light blue with an indigo outline of the region, sat behind the desk.

At the desk sat a fairly large man, with dark, graying hair. He looked very friendly, not like Lance would have pictured the sheriff of the Pastoria province of the Sinnoh region.

"Hello" Lance said, not knowing what else to say. "You are Chief Talent?"

"Yes" Chief Talent replied, reaching out his hand for Lance to shake. He did so, being careful so as not to scratch the sheriff with the spike on the back of his paw.

Lance decided to cut right to the chase. He'd been told to show the sheriff respect, not to annoy him. He hoped that, by saying what he was planning to say right now, he wouldn't end up annoying Chief Talent.

"Do you have any intel as to why I transformed into a Lucario?" Lance asked. He wasn't one for the greetings that occurred at the start of most conversations. He generally just skipped right to the point of the conversation, which tended to annoy many others in his life.

Chief Talent shook his head sadly. "I wish we did. Trust me when I say that we are working on it, but that there is absolutely no evidence for anything specific. However, we do have a general idea".

Lance's heart leaped. "You do have an idea? Please tell me!"

"Well, it's a very imperfect one" Chief Talent replied. "Indeed, I don't think that you will want to hear it. Personally, I don't know if this theory has any legs to stand on at all. But you're probably willing to have me tell you anything, right?"

"Yes" the boy replied. "As long as...as long as it's true".

"Very well, then" the sheriff said. "Well, let me start by telling you about the offer. I can tell that you're the type of person who likes to cut to the chase, so I'm going to do a little of that myself if that is okay".

"That is all right" Lance replied. "So what is that offer?"

"Have you heard of the Skylock Empire?"

That caused the whole room to freeze, at least to Lance. At the moment, nothing mattered except for that weird name he'd been told...the _Skylock Empire?_ What the hell was that?

"I'm sorry" he replied. "I-I've never heard of them. Not in my life".

"Well, the Skylock Empire is an empire located a little bit south of here. Okay, a _lot_ south of here. They've taken over a series of islands in the ocean, but they want more. Much more".

"Do they want to take over Sinnoh?" Lance asked.

Chief Talent nodded. "Yes, eventually that is their goal. But they're not at that point yet. Right now, they're in Hoenn, trying to invade parts of it. At least, they're planning for an invasion".

Lance was an inherently selfish individual; that is something that needs to be said. He was thinking, _I don't care! They're in Hoenn; I'm in Sinnoh. Do you see why I don't care now?_

However, he didn't say that. He'd been told not to piss Chief Talent off, and he had a feeling that, if he said that, he just might piss Chief Talent off.

"There are", the chief said, "some reasons to believe that they might be successful. There are plenty of people on the inside of Hoenn trying to help them in any way they can. The Skylock Empire is very persuasive".

"Why do they help?" Lance asked. "Is there any reason for them to?"

"Well, they're promised extravagant things. Some are willing to sign their lives away for outrageous sums of money. Others are willing to betray their nation for power. And power is very addictive, let me tell you that. Everybody wants to rule the world".

Lance tried to get that song out of his head, but completely failed at that. When he was able to finally get his bearings again, he found that Chief Talent was looking at him with an annoyed expression.

"So", Lance said, "the Skylock Empire is...what? A terrorist organization? Or a whole different country?"

"One could see it as an organization that wants to make itself into a nation. Certainly, they're making moves to attempt to colonize the mainland of Hoenn. It will be difficult to beat them back without an enormous standing army".

Lance had a feeling that he knew where this was going. It was a very dark place indeed, somewhere he really didn't want to go. The very thought chilled him straight to the bone.

"Last night, I got a call from the sheriff of Oldale Town, located in central Hoenn. He gave me some very disturbing news".

Lance's heart threatened to burst through his chest, it was pounding that hard. "What was that news?" he asked, not wanting to believe it himself.

"He said that, if more troops are not supplied immediately, they will not be able to beat back a possible invasion".

"And that's where I come in?" Lance asked. "Really?"

"Yes, yes" Chief Talent replied. "We go to the doors of random Pokemon who have just turned eighteen and give them this offer. Lucario are one of the most highly sought after due to being Fighting types. But let me tell you something".

"What is it?" the young man said. He was liking Chief Talent less and less the more he got to know him.

"If you accept, you will be given a very high amount of money in order to support your family. Enough so that your sister will be able to go to college debt-free. Enough so that your family is completely self-sufficient, and neither your mother, your father, nor beautiful little Michaela Grant have to work another day in their lives".

"When you refer to my sister that way", Lance admitted, "it makes me hate you more".

He expected Chief Talent to punch him. He expected to get into a fistfight, not a ten-second staring contest.

However, the latter was what happened. The two of them looked at each other, dead in the eyes, for about that length of time, and then Chief Talent sat back down in his chair.

"What happens if I decline?"

"If you decline", Chief Talent replied, "well, I did say that you and your family would be supported for life. It would be a shame if something were to happen to your family, wouldn't it?"

Lance narrowed his eyes. "Are you threatening my family?"

The sheriff raised both his hands, as though he was the criminal in a situation where somebody was getting arrested. "No, why did you think that? I'm just saying, if someone in your family gets sick, and you can't afford health insurance...this is an opportunity to bring that safety net up a little, you know?"

"Yeah, sure" Lance replied, looking down at the ground. He didn't care how inviting the sheriff made it sound, he was still convinced that Chief Talent was threatening his family.

"Anyway", the sheriff said, "the way things are going, they don't have enough troops. Tomorrow morning, if you accept, I could have you flown down to Hoenn. There, you would receive some training to join their army. After that, you would start to see some combat situations".

"It's really not a choice" Lance replied angrily. "Because you're threatening my family".

"Again, I'm _not"_ Chief Talent replied, sounding just as angry.

 _A threat by any other name is still a threat,_ Lance thought, but he kept that thought inside his head. After all, he didn't want to get shot by a tranquilizer dart and carted off to the jungles of Hoenn.

No. If he went there, he wanted it to be of his own accord.

"So…" Lance said. "How long is the flight down there?"

"Roughly seven hours" Chief Talent replied. "You would be on a military hovercraft with forty-nine other recruits. All of you would be transported to the headquarters, nearby the Oldale Airport".

 _Tomorrow night, I might be sleeping in the barracks,_ Lance thought to himself. _Is this really worth it?_

 _Your family will die if you don't do this._

 _Is it worth it, though?_

Lance saw most things in life through a lense of selfishness. If something was good for him, regardless of whether or not it was bad for others, he was going to do it. He wasn't one to make sacrifices for others.

But if his family died, as a result of a decision he had made...was his life really going to be livable? He highly doubted it. For as much as he was selfish, he also got guilty rather easily.

"Tell me more about the conditions there" Lance told Chief Talent. "I won't know enough to make a decision unless I've actually been there for myself. I want to know just what it's going to be like there, because, the fact is, I love my life up here in suburban Pastoria City".

"I see" the sheriff replied. "Well...it won't be like you're used to here at home. It'll be a tough place to be".

"How so?" Lance asked. "There'll be a lot of training there, right?"

"Well...yeah" Chief Talent replied. "After all, that is kind of what is required of military personnel, which you will be one of".

 _Great,_ Lance thought. _I'm going to be just like those people you always see in movies and on TV. Isn't the life of a soldier, or veteran, pretty hard?_

"Isn't that life really hard?" Lance asked. "Like...a lot of post-traumatic stress?"

"I will not beat around the bush here, Lance Grant. I know that you are worried about these things, and I will tell you that they occur. Often. However, there are things that we can do in order to mitigate the likelihood of them affecting you".

"Like what?" Lance asked.

"We have desensitization lessons at the base" Chief Talent replied. "To help you have less trauma whenever you witness something happen. It's to make you more prepared for combat".

The idea of PTSD sounded terrible to Lance. He didn't want to experience it, and he was sure that it would make his life absolutely miserable if he did.

However, the idea of willingly _desensitizing_ himself to it sounded even worse. If they wanted him to somehow be able to view death and destruction as a fact of life…

 _I won't let them,_ Lance thought to himself. With a new sense of determination, he stared right at Chief Talent. He felt extremely brave to be doing so; he knew that it would probably only cause him harm later on, to be so brazen about it.

But he was going to go along with it. He was going to stay determined to remain human.

 _Remain human? That's not going to work, is it, since I'm a Lucario?_

Of course, Lance knew what he really meant when he thought about it. While he might no longer be able to turn back into a human, he could remain determined to hold all of the emotional capacity as a human.

If he watched a lot of his fellow soldiers die in battle, he would not stay stoic about it. He would cry as much as he wanted to, because they were his fellow soldiers. Brave Pokemon who had done the same as him in volunteering for this.

"Okay" Lance said, realizing that he was still in a conversation with the sheriff. "Say I'm desensitized. Then I won't get post-traumatic stress disorder. Then it's all good, right? What protection will there be for me?"

"Well, you are a Lucario, right? At least, you have been since yesterday?"

"Yes" Lance replied. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, you could use aura to form a flexible barrier around yourself. You can use a little bit of it to block projectiles, such as bullets, from piercing your fur. There are other aura-related items that you might find at the base, made specifically for Lucario".

"What types of items?" Lance asked.

"Attack, defense, and other things" the sheriff replied. "You'll find out when you get there. As for food, it's generally pretty good there; they feed their soldiers pretty well at the base".

"Well, that's a relief" the young man said sarcastically.

"Indeed it should be. Our chefs at the base are world-class. There's a lot else that must be said before you leave. Some rules of the base, before you decide to go".

"Okay" Lance replied. "What are those?"

"First off, joining the army is a five-year commitment. During that time, you will not be permitted to marry or have children. It's a lifestyle that few would choose willingly. Might be part of the reason why it's so hard for them to find recruits these days".

"That's fine with me".

"It is?" Chief Talent asked. "If not, that's fine; we could always find someone else to do it if you don't want to?"

Lance decided not to mention the fact that Chief Talent had just threatened his family, but things were all right otherwise. As for not marrying for five years, Lance hadn't planned to get married early anyway, so that was a non-factor for him.

"Our second rule is that, once you sign up, you can't stop for five years, or until the war has been won. It's in your best interest, once you have signed up, to kill as many of the mechanical monsters as you can".

"Wait...they are mechanical?" Lance asked the sheriff.

"Yes" Chief Talent replied, clicking a button on a TV remote. "Well, some of them. Check out this news report".

The sheriff turned the TV to the five o'clock news, which was just starting up. And Lance saw what was going on.

There was footage of a battle occurring in the middle of the jungle. _Just like my dream,_ Lance thought. _It's just like that._

What was more, it was clear to see that an army of Lucario were running through the jungle at full tilt. The headline read, "BATTLE IN HOENN JUNGLE LEAVES 160 DEAD, 1,243 WOUNDED".

"Wow" Lance said. "That's a high death toll". It was also a very specific number of injured personnel, but he decided not to mention that.

"Indeed it is" the sheriff replied. "This was a very violent battle indeed. News of this war is on channels 4 and 279. This is Channel Four right now, and it's covering the battle itself".

"What is Channel 279 covering?" the Lucario boy asked. He didn't really want to know, but he felt that he _needed_ to know. He felt like it was a moral obligation that he found out as much as he could about this situation, because he was most likely going to be entering into it within the next few days.

"The aftermath" Chief Talent said.

In a voice that Lance had a hard time keeping from breaking, he said, "Please show me that channel".

"Granted".

After pressing another button on the remote, Chief Talent had switched the channel, and the TV now showed a completely different scene.

It was of a hospital's morgue. Dead bodies were lying in glass cases, most of them with eyes wide open (although some of them had had their eyes closed so as to look less creepy).

It was quite a disturbing scene, and Lance fought the urge to look away. However, if he did, he got the feeling that he'd end up in more precarious territory with Chief Talent than he already was.

"That's the morgue" the sheriff said unnecessarily. " _This_ is of the lobby, now".

Lance looked at the scene on the TV, even though it was hard to see. His eyes were watering with tears; he didn't know how much of it he could take, or if he could even take any of it.

Lucarios, Zoroarks, Blazikens, and other species were all lying on stretchers. Some were conscious, some were unconscious. Some already had IVs inserted into their arms. Many didn't.

All of them had some sort of wound visible on some part of their body. They'd been bandaged up with gauze, but many of them still had blood visible underneath said gauze. All appeared to be in pain, even the ones that were unconscious.

 _And that could be me in a few days,_ Lance realized. _Or I could be dead. Either or._

"Do you want to do this, Lance?" Chief Talent asked him.

"I mean...you were telling me that my family was going to be killed if I didn't, so I guess I have to" the Lucario boy replied.

"I wouldn't be the one to kill your family" the sheriff replied.

"So you'd hire some subordinate to do it like the coward you are" Lance spat at him. "Go to hell, Chief Talent".

Lance sprang up out of his seat and moved to the other side of the chair. He held it up, in a position where he could have swung it to hit Chief Talent in the face.

"Hold up, Lance. You need to let me explain".

Lance sat back down. "Okay? What needs to be explained?"

"I'm not threatening to kill your family. What I am saying is, your family could very well be in danger if we don't successfully beat back the Skylock Empire. Who knows where they might occupy once they are done with Hoenn?"

The Lucario boy thought about it for a few more seconds. "So, you're not threatening me?"

"How many times do I have to tell you? I'm not".

For the most part, Lance had lived his life being selfish. But how much would he be able to enjoy his life if he willingly put his family, and everything else, at risk?

No, there was only one decision that even might allow him to live his life the way he wanted to.

"I'll do it" he said with a heavy heart.

"Okay, then" Chief Talent replied. "That is all it takes. If you'll just sign here".

The sheriff went back to one of his filing cabinets and took out a piece of paper. "As soon as you sign this, you will be legally obligated to serve in the Hoenn Army. Make sure that you are wholeheartedly prepared to do so before you begin".

Lance read over it. A few lines were a little bit interesting to him, but nothing that Chief Talent hadn't already told him.

Taking the pen that had been placed in front of him, Lance signed the paper with shaking paws.

"All right" the sheriff said. "There you go. If you don't have any other questions, I suggest that you go home and pack. The plane will depart from Pastoria Airport at 10:22 AM".

Lance nodded.

"You may leave".

As Lance turned around and walked back down the stairs, he was already regretting it.


	5. Breaking the News

**This is the shortest chapter yet, and I would like to apologize for that. My excuse? This really is intended as a transition chapter, and the next chapter will have far more consequential events.**

 **Also, I'll be getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. I might be too drugged up to write for a couple of days. Or maybe I'll only be able to write.**

 **Enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

As soon as Lance walked out of Sheriff's Tower, he was assaulted by an onslaught of reporters once again.

 _Great,_ he thought, sarcastically of course. They'd come here for the purpose of getting information out of him, having followed him all the way to the station. After that, they had evidently waited outside until he was done with his interview, preparing to hound him as soon as he got out of there.

 _Well, fuck,_ he thought. _I fucking hate these interviews._

Of course, if he didn't want to use an Aura Sphere to blast them all away (and get charged with multiple counts of assault afterwards), he kind of had to answer their questions.

One of the reporters from Vulpix News asked him, "What offer did Chief Talent make you?"

Lance was a little hesitant to answer. After all, he didn't think it would be wise if the Skylock Empire gained information about where he would be going.

 _Could I lie?,_ he thought. He'd been raised to know that it was very immoral to lie, but was this a good time to do so, if there ever was one?

"Well", he said, "he said that I could go down to Hoenn to be a part of their military. I could help to fight".

 _Did I say too much? I think I said too much,_ he thought.

"Fight against whom?" the Vulpix News reporter asked. "This is important, now".

It was as if a dam broke inside him. No longer able to hold in the answer to that question, he responded, "The Skylock Empire. They're coming for Hoenn, but I'm going to be coming for them!"

"That's the spirit!" the reporter replied enthusiastically. "Is there anything else you'd like to say to us?"

"No" Lance replied. "If it's okay with you guys, I still have absolutely no idea how I turned into a Lucario. And, if I don't go home now, that's not going to change. Really, it's best if you guys just leave me alone".

"Of course, of course" a woman from Pastoria Radio said. "Sorry that we keep hounding you for questions".

 _Don't say sorry,_ Lance thought. _Just do it! Just stop already!_

Luckily, he was able to escape the throng of reporters long enough to get into the police car that had still been waiting for him. Like he had before, he stepped into the car and was handcuffed.

"What's the point of the handcuffs this time?" he asked. "Now, everybody knows I was here. There should be no harm in letting my hands be free".

"Yes", the cop driving the car replied, "except that this is protocol. No matter why the person is in the back of the car, they still must be handcuffed at all times that they are inside the vehicle. That's just the way it goes, Lance Grant".

The majority of the drive back was extremely silent. The tension was so thick that a knife might not have been sufficient to cut it.

Lance couldn't stop wondering about what would happen to him once he was down in Hoenn. He'd heard horrible stories about those jungles.

He'd heard stories of people who had gotten infections so bad in the jungle that they'd had to get their arms or legs amputated. He'd heard stories of people who had gotten heat stroke from being out in the hot sun for too long. He'd heard stories of the beasts that lived in the jungle, sharing them with soldiers who had fought there.

Humans and Pokemon had managed to coexist peacefully since the end of the Great Pokemon War. But that had been more than five hundred years ago. If there was indeed going to be another war…

Lance didn't want to think about it, but he found himself doing so anyway. The Great Pokemon War (or the GPW, as some called it by its acronym), had been full of atrocities. Trainers turning on their own Pokemon and vice versa had only been one example.

It was a very good thing that Pokemon battles existed. They were a method of entertainment, yes, but they were also a way of keeping both humans and Pokemon in check. They enabled people to satiate their desire for some form of combat without anybody getting seriously hurt. And that was seen as a major factor in the Great Pokemon War ending, and the last five centuries being relatively peaceful.

Now, that was all in jeopardy, if what Chief Talent had said was true. And, the thing was, Lance had no reason to think otherwise. He'd seen the footage. He'd transformed into a Lucario. _Something_ was definitely out of the ordinary.

 _Oh, well,_ he thought. _I'm probably going to be a terrible soldier. I'll probably not live to see things get REALLY bad. And that's probably a good thing._

With that, Lance was able to console himself until he arrived home.

By now, it was almost six in the evening, and his mother would be cooking dinner. Reminding himself that she already knew about the meeting, Lance steeled himself for the inevitable. One thing was for certain: She wouldn't be happy to find out that he was leaving.

 _But,_ he reminded himself, _it's for the greater good. The Skylock Empire must be beaten back at all costs. And plus, it's only for five years._

When one was convinced that they wouldn't live for five years, however, that was little consolation to Lance. All he wanted right now was to tell his mother how much he loved her, how thankful he was for everything she had done for him over the last eighteen years.

"Mom?" he asked, as soon as he got into the house.

She turned around from the pot of meatball soup she had been making. "Lance! It's so nice to see you! What's going on?"

"Not a whole lot" he replied. "Actually, a whole lot. I'll tell you guys at dinner; I'm getting kind of hungry after that meeting".

"Okay" his mother said. "Dinner will be ready in about half an hour. Why don't you go do some homework?"

"All right" Lance replied. "I'll do some homework".

Of course, him saying that he was going to do his homework was really a front. Since he was never going to go to school again, he saw no reason to indulge himself in the complete and total boredom that was known as _homework._

Instead, he spent the next thirty minutes packing and organizing. Lance had never considered himself a particularly organized person; whenever his family would pack for trips, he wouldn't fold his clothes the right way, and it would end up that it was difficult for his things to fit in the suitcase.

Now that he was a Lucario, he no longer saw fit to wear clothes. As a result, he could leave those out of the calculus entirely.

Instead, he packed a book of crossword puzzles and a series of pens. He didn't know how much free time he would have when he was in the Hoenn Army, but he figured that it would be better to be safe than sorry.

As for other entertainment, he sincerely hoped that he'd find enough enjoyment out of getting to know his fellow recruits. He'd need to spend some time with them learning how to work together as a team, after all - there would surely be some time for becoming acquainted with them.

"Lance!" his mother eventually called, and he came downstairs to sit and eat with his parents and sister.

The table was highly awkward, although it didn't seem like the others found it that way. The way it appeared, only Lance was finding things even slightly awkward, which made sense when one thought about it.

After all, he was going to be going away the next day. Even if his parents had been notified of the decision their son was about to make, the fact remained that Lance himself had been the one to make it.

He hadn't _had_ to choose to go away. And yet he had anyway, because he cared about the Sinnoh region.

 _They'll understand it someday,_ Lance told himself as he was chewing on a piece of steak. _I'll make sure of it._

"So, Lance, how was your day?" his father asked him, passing the potatoes.

"It was good, thanks" the boy replied. "But there is something that I'd really like to tell you".

"What is that?" Lance's mother asked her son.

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning. It's nothing against you or anything like that. It's just the decision that I have made for myself".

"I think I know exactly what this is" his father replied. "Chief Talent, the sheriff, said that you were wanted to join the army or something? Was that it?"

Michaela spat out a green bean. " _Army?_ " she gasped. "You're joining the army?"

Lance had a difficult time nodding, even though he knew that, since this was his family, he had to be honest with them. "Yes, I'm going away to join the army" he said. "And I don't think that it'll be easy at all. But I'm doing it".

"Why are you joining the army?" Michaela asked. "Don't you love us?"

Lance had a response prepared for that, just in case he was faced with that rebuttal. "Yes, I do love you guys. But I also love the region of Sinnoh, and I'm not going to let it be taken over by the Skylock Empire".

"Chief Talent was a little vague on the details" Mrs. Grant replied. "What did they want you to do, again?"

"They want me to fight with them in the jungles of Hoenn" Lance replied. "I said that I would do it, so they're going to have a plane at the airport at 10:22 AM. Pastoria Airport, that is".

"How long is the flight?" Mr. Grant asked. "Did he say?"

"About seven hours. But I'll be occupied. I won't just stare at my computer the whole time. I mean, I don't think military planes have Wi-Fi access, so…".

"They don't" his father replied. "I'm pretty sure of that. What I also wanted to say is, I want you to make sure that you really want to do this. Once you make the decision to go, there is absolutely no turning back. You realize that, right?"

Lance nodded, and that put a lump in the back of his throat. He knew that he should not have signed the paper the way he had; that had been impulsive and reckless, done in the spur of the moment.

At the same time, he knew that there was no changing it. He'd made his bed, and, to borrow a popular phrase, he was now going to have to lie in it. He wasn't going to get a second chance to change his mind.

"I do realize that" Lance said. "And this is something I want to do. It sounds like it's going to be exciting, being able to serve Hoenn, but also Sinnoh as well".

"Yes, yes. Be safe, though" his father replied. "You never can tell what might go down in those parts".

His son nodded.

Later, after being excused from the dinner table, Lance didn't know what to do in order to pass the time before bed. There really was nothing to do at all, unless he wanted to spend the next hour or two messaging his friends on Discord, telling them where he was going.

 _Actually, that wouldn't be such a bad idea,_ he thought. _They're going to wonder what happened when I don't show up to school on Monday._

He eventually decided against it. It wouldn't do to make his friends worry, or worse, be mad at him for deserting them. As much as he would try to explain that he was doing it for a greater good, a higher meaning, than just them, they wouldn't have any of it. They would beg him to shut up. And he wouldn't be able to blame them; he'd be pretty pissed at that as well.

At a certain point, he decided that enough was enough. He might as well just go to bed.

And go to bed he did.

Somehow, he didn't have any dreams that night.

Nothing good happened in his mind, nothing bad happened in his mind. It was both a blessing and a curse.

 _Let's consider it a blessing,_ Lance thought as he got out of bed. That was the right way to look at it, because, when one really thought about it, the only dreams that realistically would have come for him would be nightmares. And the dreams in which he was dying were _not_ the best dreams he'd ever had.

He ate breakfast with his family for one last meal. He didn't know how many more meals he'd have left; he knew there would be at least a couple, but he didn't want to take a risk and not eat before he left. He didn't know if there would be food on the plane, but he suspected that there might not be.

 _And really, that's fine,_ he decided. _I'll have to get used to going for long periods of time without food. Why not start on the plane?_

After eating, he decided to comb his fur one last time. He wanted to make a good impression on those whom he would be serving with in the army. It wouldn't do to look silly, not at all.

Once he had determined that he was quite presentable, it was time to go.


	6. Departure

**My surgery went very well. I'm one day post-op and pretty much completely pain-free.**

 **I went into the oral surgeon's office, and almost immediately they attached all those monitors to me. The last thing I remember is looking at the IV in my arm, and then waking up 30 minutes later with my mouth packed with gauze, feeling like it had only been a few seconds. Twilight sleep is some crazy stuff.**

 **It turns out it's the latter; I've had little else to do but write. I hope this chapter is to your liking; it's the longest one yet, and I had a very good time writing it.**

* * *

Since Lance only had his learner's permit, not his license, he had to have someone drive him to the airport. He wasn't used to driving on the highway. Besides, things might feel different as a Lucario, he reasoned. It was better to be safe than sorry.

It was his mother who led him towards her car, a navy blue contraption that was highly effective at its purpose. Of course, it only had one purpose; to get people where they needed to go.

"All right" she said. Checking the clock on the car revealed that it was 8:13 AM. "Is there anything you need to do or get here before we leave? Because we need to leave soon, otherwise it'll be a bit tough to get there in time".

Lance shook his head no. Really, there was nothing that was necessary.

"Okay, then" Mrs. Grant replied.

She pulled out of the driveway and drove onto the highway. The entire time, Lance started to feel more and more anxious about what was going on.

 _This is really it,_ he thought. _I might never see my family again._

Of course, he tried to think in a more optimistic fashion. He tried to convince himself that somehow, he would manage to make it home. Not in a pine box, but on a plane.

Nonetheless, it was hard to shake the feeling that somehow, in some fashion, this wouldn't go well for him. He wasn't going to despair or anything like that; rather, he was simply going to convince himself that things would go better than he had thought.

 _Really,_ he thought, _that's the best I can do. I can't guarantee that I'll come back home alive, but at least I'll be able to make sure I try my very hardest to survive the jungles of Hoenn._

"What have you heard about Hoenn, Lance?" his mother asked him as soon as they were about ten minutes out from their house, as well as being ten minutes or so from the airport.

"I've heard that it's quite nice there" the boy replied. "Except for those jungles. The jungles are quite dangerous".

"Dangerous in what way, Lance?" his mother replied, asking the question in a way that made Lance know that she already knew the answer.

"I've heard that the heat gets to many a soldier, if infection doesn't get them first. Lots of infections make their way around, right?"

Mrs. Grant nodded. "Yeah, that's true. Luckily, I think that you're fully vaccinated against everything in Sinnoh. Once you're there, at least according to the paper, you're going to get vaccinated against everything else that is necessary. Understood?"

Lance held what passed for his thumb up, indicating that he understood what she was saying.

"I wish you weren't doing this, honestly, Lance" she eventually said, eyes laser-focused on the highway, as it should have been.

"Why not, Mom?" he replied.

"Because, when you think about it, it's somewhere between brazen and reckless, what you chose to do" she said. "You chose to willingly leave your family for the jungles of Hoenn and a war that has never ended. A war that, if we're all honest with ourselves, probably _will_ never end".

"You never know about that" Lance replied. "It sounds like the war hasn't even started yet; the Skylock Empire hasn't started their full offensive".

"It's the type of war", his mother replied, "that tends to fizzle on and off. You might think that it can't possibly last too much longer, but that's blatantly false. No matter what, it could always get worse. It could".

"I'm well aware of that" Lance said. "I'm also aware that it could get better. And I'm fully intent on doing everything possible to make it better".

"I still think that this was the wrong decision, Lance. You're going to regret it later when you get trench foot in one of the swamps, or malaria, or get shot. You're going to be miserable then".

Lance didn't respond out loud. Instead, he just sat in his seat, quietly seething. _Thanks, Mom,_ he thought sarcastically. It wasn't something he wanted to thank her for at all, though; he wanted to be able to punch her in the face.

However, in spite of that, he still loved his mother. He still felt guilty for abandoning his family. _But I'd be abandoning my family anyway,_ he told himself, _if I didn't join._

Finally, they arrived at the airport. Pastoria was a fairly small airport compared to the one in Jubilife City, where Lance's father frequently travelled in and out of. Even so, it wasn't _that_ small, and it took Lance a while to find the correct check-in counter.

"Are you checking any bags, sir?" the agent, a Blaziken wearing a police hat, asked.

"Nope" the Lucario boy replied. "I'm just taking my backpack. That's all".

Looking at the ID his mother had given him, the Blaziken's eyes widened. "Lance Grant? Are you telling me that you are _Lance Grant?"_

Lance gulped. This was what he had been afraid of. _More_ people wanting to get his autograph. _More_ people wanting to get his attention. He was sick of it.

"I am" he said, not sure if he would end up regretting it or not. "And I'm joining the Hoenn Army so that I don't have to constantly answer that question".

 _Good one, Lance!,_ he thought triumphantly to himself. Really, it was quite a good excuse that he should have given to his parents. They might not have liked what he was doing anyway, but they could at least have understood him a little more.

Now there was no chance for that. Worse still, it looked almost like a coin flip that Lance would ever see his family again.

 _A coin flip,_ he thought to himself. _If it's a coin flip, I sure as hell had better do everything I can to make sure that the coin flips in the direction of me surviving._

"Can I have your autograph?" the Blaziken asked, almost right on cue. Seeing Lance's expression in response to that, one that can only be described as extremely hostile, said Blaziken raised both his arms in the air. "Okay, I was just kidding".

"It's not a funny joke" Lance replied curtly.

After he had checked in for his flight, he went into the security line. He was grateful for the fact that the other passengers had to put their cameras away, because he didn't need even _more_ photos all over the Internet.

The only interesting thing that happened in the security checkpoint was a middle-aged man getting stopped. He'd been wearing a watch, and it had set off the metal detector. Luckily, the situation had been dealt with very quickly indeed, and Lance was through the security line almost as quickly as he had been through the check-in line.

Deciding that he'd get a quick pastry at Staryubucks Coffee, he walked in that direction in the A terminal of the airport. He didn't drink coffee, ever; he only ever went to Staryubucks for the pastries.

While he was waiting in _that_ line, he noticed that he was only one of two Pokemon in that line. The other was a Zoroark that he could tell was female.

This Zoroark, unlike most Zoroarks, had a blue ponytail, rather than the typical crimson color. This didn't make any sense to Lance, and that made him wonder if there was something interesting about this one. Certainly, it was something that bore watching.

When the two of them were at the front of the line, the Zoroark suddenly turned around after placing her order for the coffee. "Lance Grant?" she asked.

 _Shit! She knows who I am! Okay, Lance, act casual, like you're surprised. Because you're not._

"You guessed right" the Lucario boy replied. "What gave it away?"

"It's just something about you" she replied. Now, it was clear that it was a female Zoroark speaking, as clear as day. The voice was feminine, but not overly so. It sounded...sweet, in a way.

 _Don't get ahead of yourself, Lance,_ one voice inside his head said. _You only just met her._

 _She's totally my type,_ another voice said.

 _It doesn't matter! You'd still better get to know her more first!_

"Yes, I am Lance Grant" Lance replied. "The boy who turned into a Lucario. What is your name?"

"Claire" the Zoroark replied.

"Claire" the Lucario boy said. "What a nice name".

"Thanks".

Lance was normally quite socially awkward. The mere thought of dating made him want to run for the hills and never look back; it was a tough subject for him to _think_ about, let alone talk about.

And yet...he knew that something might be different after this tour he did in Hoenn. Maybe, just maybe, things would work out romantically.

 _Again,_ the rational part of his brain said, _when will you listen to me? You only just met her. She might be a complete and total bitch on the inside. You'd better wait for a while._

After Lance got his apple fritter, he waited for Claire to receive her cup of coffee. After that, the both of them found a table to sit at.

"You don't drink coffee?" Claire asked Lance. "I find that a little odd".

"What is odd about it?" the Lucario boy replied. "I've just always preferred it this way. I only go to Staryubucks for the pastries".

"Fair" Claire said.

Together, they looked at each other for a while. Lance was the next one to break the silence. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"I'm going to Oldale Town, Hoenn" she replied. "To join the Hoenn Army".

Lance nearly fainted. "You're going there?"

Claire narrowed her eyes. "Yes. I decided to serve Hoenn in the armed forces in order to help protect Sinnoh. What is so difficult to understand about that?"

"It's not hard to understand" Lance replied. "In fact, I'm going there too".

The Zoroark's eyes had widened once more. "You're fucking kidding me. You're fucking _kidding_ me".

"Sometimes I wish I was" Lance said simply. "But it's true. I'm going out there".

"Ten twenty-two" Claire said. "That's when the plane's going to leave. As soon as we get on, there's no turning back".

"Exactly" the Lucario boy replied. "We're going to have to make sure that we're completely ready to do this. I assume that you are?"

Claire smiled. "You've probably never met me before; I don't remember what you looked like as a human. But let me tell you; I'm never one to shirk away from my duties to protect the homeland of Sinnoh. After all, we're going to be in danger eventually from the Skylock Empire, aren't we?"

"Yes" Lance replied. "I suppose that is true".

After that, it wasn't a whole lot longer until the screen stated what gate the hovercraft would be at. Indeed, it was on time, 10:22 AM.

Lance didn't know whether this relieved him or not. On one hand, he was very glad that everything was going according to plan so far, with the plane being at the gate at the right time. On the other hand, if the hovercraft had been delayed, that would have given more time to mentally prepare. More time to get to know Claire. More time to make sure that this was what he really wanted to do.

 _There's no way back now,_ he told himself. _I signed that sheet of paper. I'm committed. Let's bring this on._

They made it to the gate with about twenty minutes before boarding. After taking the time to relieve themselves and get drinks of water, they sat in their seats for the rest of the time, Lance praying that the ride wouldn't be too bad.

He'd been on airplanes before. He had visited the regions of Kanto and Johto together with his family; however, he'd never been to Hoenn before, not on any occasion.

"Have you ever been to Hoenn before, Claire?" Lance asked the Zoroark. He wanted an idea as to what to expect once he was there, and he figured that if the Zoroark knew what it was like, that could only serve to help him.

She nodded. "Indeed I have, Lance. When I was fourteen; I'm seventeen now".

Lance's eyes widened. "What sorts of things did you do there?"

"We went whitewater rafting, hiking, snorkeling, and ziplining" she replied. The tone of voice Claire was using was no doubt specifically engineered to make the Lucario boy as jealous as possible. After she was done saying it, she said, "Sorry if I sounded like I was bragging".

"It's fine" Lance replied, even though, in his own head, he was thinking, _She's totally bragging. She wants to make me jealous of it all, doesn't she?_

"Hey", she said, "I'm sure that you've gotten to do a lot of cool things in your life as well, right?"

"Nothing like that. I really haven't gotten to travel that much" he said.

"That's a shame" Claire replied. "I've gotten to travel quite a bit myself, and it is quite fun, wouldn't you agree?"

"It is. Part of the reason I signed up for the army is so that I could travel more" the Lucario boy said. "I wanted a chance to see Hoenn. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get to go ziplining too when we are there".

Claire shrugged. "You never know" she said, in a voice that could be described as slightly seductive.

After that, the man at the gate announced that the military hovercraft to Oldale Airport would be boarding. Unlike most aircraft, this one had no first class, nor would it have snacks and drinks served by the flight attendants. It was simply going to be a ride from point A to point B.

Personally, Lance was okay with that. He didn't like flight attendants, and he'd never even gotten to sit in first class anyway, so who cared?

They walked down the hallway and got in the hovercraft. Immediately, Lance became convinced that nothing like this would _ever_ be used for commercial transport of civilians.

For one, the seats didn't appear that comfortable. Made of some dark-colored metal, they blended in well with the walls. The inside was gray in color, not a colorful interior at all.

"This is the central seating area" the pilot said, looking back and giving an imperious smile. "There is a bathroom and a med bay, with an operating room in the back. Here's to hoping that none of you need it".

"Thanks" Lance said. _That's very comforting to know._

It did give him some peace of mind to know that there was an OR on board, but not that much. He didn't think that anyone would get injured on this simple flight to Hoenn.

Lance sat to Claire's left. In the seat to his right, there was a Blaziken.

"Are you Lance Grant?" the Blaziken asked.

Before the Lucario boy could respond, Claire replied, "Yes, it is Lance Grant. But please don't bombard him with questions; he's kind of sick of that".

 _Thank you and curse you, Claire,_ Lance thought to himself. He didn't know if he was glad Claire had said that or not. On one hand, she'd made it clear that he was sick of being asked questions. On the other hand, she'd completely broken his cover.

"What's your name?" Lance asked the Blaziken.

"It's Brad" the Blaziken replied. "Short for Bradley, but everyone calls me Brad. And you are?" he asked, cranking his neck to look at the Zoroark.

"Claire" she said.

Before they could continue their conversation, the door of the hovercraft was shut with a banging noise, a noise so powerful that everyone else on board gave a start.

"Yes, that is that" the pilot said. "A few things I'd like you all to know about today's flight".

Everybody stayed quiet. All the seats were full, all thirty-six of them. Every occupant was looking at the pilot with looks of anxiety, but also excitement.

"Our flight from Pastoria City to Oldale Town will take approximately seven hours and three minutes. There will be no snack or drink service. We are expecting to land in Oldale Town, Hoenn at around 5:25 PM. Estimated temperature there is 88 degrees, with humidity at 89%. It's currently cloudy with a 25% chance of rain".

Despite the mention of heat, Lance shivered. That was one of his least favorite types of weather; hot and humid. He had no doubt that, with now being a Lucario, he would find it all the more uncomfortable.

At the same time, however, he'd have to deal with it, just like everyone else. The idea might have sounded absolutely horrendous to him, but, for everybody who lived there every day, it was just a fact of life.

 _I can live with it,_ he told himself. _That doesn't mean I have to like it._

"All right. I hope you enjoy your flight" the pilot said. "See you guys in a fraction over seven hours".

After that, the hovercraft took off, and the passengers were all left to their own devices.

Brad, to Lance's annoyance, fell asleep almost immediately. This wouldn't have been such a big deal, except that the Blaziken slumped over onto Lance's lap, something that the Lucario boy found quite annoying.

Claire, however, stayed wide awake. Looking over at Lance, she saw how annoyed he was, but couldn't do anything about it. Lance knew how awful that must have made her feel, but he didn't say anything. He didn't think it was necessary to. It was perfectly transparent to everybody on the plane how annoying it was when someone slept on top of you.

Two hours into the seven-hour flight, Lance fell asleep briefly from sheer boredom, but he was soon jerked awake by Claire, to the point that it felt like he'd only been sleeping for minutes, if not seconds.

"How long was I asleep for?" he asked.

Claire shrugged. "My sense of time is really off. Twenty minutes? Half an hour? I suppose it doesn't matter, though, does it? I _wish_ I could fall asleep".

Lance nodded. It had been nice to kill at least a little of the time, even if it hadn't been very much. There was still quite a ways to go until they got to Oldale Town, and he was ill at ease, not knowing just what he would face once he was there.

No. He knew exactly what to expect.

War. Battling on the scale he hadn't participated in before; granted, he'd never been in combat before other than minor playground scuffles as a kid. Never anything like what he was going to face in the jungles of Hoenn.

Thinking about that turned out to be a mistake.

* * *

Lance would never remember falling asleep for the second time on that flight, but he would remember the dream.

To his left, he saw a plane having been downed. A smoking crater had been created around it, and the plane itself was on fire, having been reduced to a husk of its former self. The heat was horrendous, and Lance had to look away.

The scene from this angle wasn't much better. From what Lance could see, the jungles nearby were full of violence. The sounds of battle (rapports from automatic rifles, the slashing of swords, among other things) could be heard from here.

Lance looked at his own arms and found nothing. He'd be dependent on Aura Spheres in order to fight. Which really sucked, because he didn't know how to use that attack yet.

 _I suppose,_ he thought, _that now would be a good time to find out._

Indeed it would be, as he tried forming one in his arms, but failed. He just didn't have the requisite practice.

 _I'm screwed,_ he realized. _I have to run._

As he kept on running, however, he found himself with nowhere to go. He was on an island, in the middle of a swampy area, with absolutely no way off that didn't involve running through said swamp.

No matter which way he went, he'd have to run through it. He didn't know what kind of leeches or other creatures or parasites would be in that water, but that he had to risk it to get the biscuit. And that metaphorical biscuit was being able to get off of this island.

Lance took a deep breath and ran into the muck. The water was a lot colder than he expected, and he gasped; in this dream, he was quite used to the heat. He couldn't see any signs of an enemy, but he knew they were around there somewhere. It was very unlikely that he was alone.

Turning around, he saw a robotic Lucario.

"Who are you?" Lance asked quizzically.

The robotic Lucario, which was entirely silver in coloration, looked at Lance with an expression that could only be described as one of greatest loathing.

"That question is not necessary to know an answer to" the Lucario replied, in a voice that sounded like a mechanical parrot Lance had once had as a toy, when he was younger. "I will destroy you".

Lance tried to play it as a joke. "Easy, Lucario. I'm not going to go that hard on you, so why should you go the same way on me?"

"I will destroy you" it replied, before beginning to form an Aura Sphere in its metal paw.

This wasn't the same color as an ordinary Aura Sphere, however. This one was silver in color, and looked far more menacing. And Lance knew that it was far more potent than anything he could possibly cook up, for the boy had no practice.

Lance began to run away, but he could hear the sounds of the silver Aura Spheres from behind him.

He ran. He ran so far away. He ran until he was exhausted, and eventually became convinced that he'd managed to outrun the robotic Lucario entirely. That is, until he heard a snapping noise behind him.

"You'll want this" said a voice that chilled Lance to the bone, even in the steamy jungle air.

Somehow the robotic Lucario had managed to catch up with him. With an Aura Sphere in its paw, it was aiming directly at Lance's chest spike.

Suddenly, the Aura Sphere diffused. In a voice that did not sound any less mechanical than the robotic Lucario's, but that Lance could tell wasn't the same one: "We'll be landing in ten minutes".

"Wait, what?" Lance asked. "We'll be landing in ten min...oh".

It was then that he opened his eyes, and the real world came back into focus.

Lance realized that he was still on the hovercraft that he'd climbed onto that morning. The other 35 passengers were all looking directly at him; evidently, he'd woken those who were sleeping out of their slumber, and they were now wondering what had happened to Lance.

"I'm fine" he said. Looking down, he found a puddle of drool on the floor. He sincerely hoped that it was not his own, but he knew that that was just too good to be true.

Claire whispered in his ear. "You said it all in your sleep".

"I did, huh?" Lance replied. He was suddenly embarrassed, wondering if he had resembled anything like a person who had just gotten their wisdom teeth removed. He'd seen videos on YouTube of things like that, and he'd always found them very amusing. Of course, when you were the subject, they became far less so.

"You did" Brad replied from his right. "But don't worry. We all talk in our sleep sometimes".

"Landing in five" the pilot said.

The rest of the ride, which thankfully wasn't very long, was extremely awkward for Lance. He kept looking around, expecting someone to make fun of him, but nobody did. _Thank Arceus for that,_ Lance thought.

Finally, they reached the ground, and they were able to get off the hovercraft. Lance looked forward as soon as the door had been lowered, and he saw nothing but tarmac.

Almost immediately, a blast of hot air came by, although it was anyone's guess as to whether it was natural or artificial.

"Welcome to your life" the pilot said. "There's no turning back".


	7. The Complex

**At over 4,500 words, this is the longest chapter yet of Poke Wars, Episode I. It's also my favorite one thus far, because I enjoyed writing...well, you'll see what I enjoyed.**

 **In other news, tomorrow is my brother's 20th birthday, and today was Marathon Monday. The weather sucked - I can't imagine running a marathon in this weather. Granted, I can't imagine running a marathon PERIOD - I can only do 5Ks at most.**

 **Anyways, enjoy this chapter. And, if you want, check out my Discord server. The code to get in is in my profile.**

* * *

 _Welcome to your life. There's no turning back._

Those words were quite chilling to Lance, in spite of the heat that he was already feeling on his fur. They were yet another reminder to the Lucario boy that he had made his bed, and now he would be made to lie in it.

After the door had been opened, the recruits all filed out in alphabetical order by last name. Lance didn't pay attention to most of them, except that he did learn that Claire's last name was Morrisey, and Brad's last name was Winters. As a result, he left the plane after Claire, but well before Brad.

As soon as it was his turn, he was struck by just how humid and muggy it was. Even though he wasn't looking at it, he could tell that the sun was extremely strong here, just by looking at the pavement and feeling it on his fur.

And then he looked up, and saw exactly what the landscape looked like.

The Oldale Airport was a small one, as far as airports went. There was only one terminal, with twelve gates. The hovercraft had landed on the ground, far away from the gates, so they were walking straight out onto the tarmac.

The humidity was so great that Lance was almost immediately soaked in sweat. Sinnoh did sometimes have a wet climate, but it wasn't nearly as wet as this. And to think that it was only something like 89% humidity...he didn't want to be here when the humidity was even higher.

Unfortunately, he'd have to be.

 _This is going to suck,_ he thought.

He supposed that the scenery was pretty enough. A sparse jungle surrounded the airfield, which gave way to an area of far denser greenery. He supposed it was pretty enough; he just wished he was here under better circumstances.

He met up with Claire Morrisey almost immediately. "Oldale's nice, isn't it?" the Zoroark asked him.

"How should I know?" Lance replied. "It's not as though I've ever been here before; I only just got here".

"Well", she said, "it's really quite pleasant if you're in the city. The air conditioning is very effective, and, what is more, we weren't far from the canopy tours from there".

"You stayed in Oldale Town?"

"Yeah, I did" Claire replied. "And we had a really good time; if we were here under better circumstances, I'd take you ziplining as well".

 _She's trying to flirt with me, isn't she? Fuck that._

 _No, she's totally your type. Flirt back!_

 _That'll distract you from training. Don't get ahead of yourself, Lance!_

Just as before, the two personalities inside Lance's head were at it again, clashing with each other. Lance wished that he could have quieted them down, but that just wasn't going to happen, evidently. They'd plagued him the entire time he was awake on that flight, constantly telling him what he should or should not say to Claire.

 _Both of you, shut up! Don't distract me from anything!_ Lance screamed internally at them.

Both voices quieted down, but Lance knew that they'd come back eventually. They always did.

"They have harnesses that fit Zoroarks there?" Lance asked.

"Well, yeah" Claire replied. "They have harnesses that fit pretty much any species of Pokemon. I'm sure that you'd be able to do it as a Lucario".

Lance was pretty sure that, once he learned Extreme Speed, he'd be able to replicate the feeling of flying pretty accurately, but he decided that he wasn't going to mention that. He wanted to enjoy this talk with Claire.

At the same time, he got the sense that there was something the Zoroark was omitting as she spoke. Lance didn't have any idea what this could be, but he was determined to find out.

There were still so many questions in his mind. How had he turned into a Lucario? Did the Skylock Empire have anything to do with it?

Ultimately, Lance knew that he couldn't worry about that too much. He couldn't _afford_ to, not when he was going to be seeing combat pretty soon.

Once everyone had gotten off the plane, a Jeep drove up on the tarmac. Once it parked in front of the line of thirty-six recruits, a tall man with gray hair stepped out.

"Welcome to Hoenn, new recruits" he said, taking a look around himself. The main looked to be fairly old, perhaps in his early sixties, but he looked very strong as well. Lance wasn't sure that he'd be able to take him in a fight. Thankfully, he didn't think he'd need to.

"You might be asking who I am. Well, the answer to that question is quite easy. I'm Commander Griffin, and I'm the head of this regiment that you are all joining".

Commander Griffin nodded at the sight of the recruits. "All of you have already been very brave, opting to leave the safety of your homes for the Hoenn Army. Let me tell you that this is not an easy life; it will take everything you have to be as courageous as possible. But let me tell you, this is also going to be a highly rewarding life for all of you".

 _How so?,_ Lance wondered. He liked to think that he was doing this, not for the rewarding aspect of it, but for the fact that he'd be helping others. Wasn't that going to be its own reward?

"For one", the commander said, "you'll get to know that you are doing something to help beat back the Skylock Empire. Any day now, they may invade the mainland of Hoenn, in which case there is little that could be done to beat them back. For this reason, it is important to stop them _before_ they can take over".

Lance gulped. He didn't like the sound of what the older man was saying, but he knew it was correct. Stopping the invasion before it could happen was going to be absolutely critical.

"Let's get into the vans" Commander Griffin said. "Twelve to a van, all of you will be driven to the headquarters. The windows are blacked out so that you cannot see where you will be going".

"Why won't we be able to do that?" Brad asked. "See where we're going, I mean?"

"Because they blacked out the windows" Claire replied. "Didn't you hear what he _just_ said?"

"What I mean is", the Blaziken said, "why are they blacking out the windows? What's the point of it?"

Commander Griffin appeared to have overheard their conversation. "If you are captured by the enemy, they will no doubt attempt to torture our location out of you. If you don't know the way, they can't get the answer, no matter how hard they try. _That_ is the purpose of the blacked-out windows".

"I see" Brad replied.

"All of you, into the vans! Our goal is to get to the base as quickly as we can, and then we'll do all your medical checks and vaccinations, and all that jazz. You got that?"

All of the recruits nodded. They then followed Commander Griffin towards the vans, which looked very small for twelve people to fit in. There was little doubt in Lance's mind that it would not be a comfortable ride to the base, which was why he sincerely hoped it would be a short one. He didn't like being carsick.

Lance, Claire, and Brad were all directed to the nearest van, which had the letter C on the side. "This is just van C" the commander said unnecessarily. "We're all going to go in a line anyway, so it's kind of redundant, but that's just the way it is".

Lance saw no reason to question it as he climbed into the back. The back door of the van was what was open, and, much like the hovercraft had been, all the windows, as well as the glass pane on the door (which meant basically everything one could have seen out of), were blacked out. He remembered that this was so that the location of headquarters couldn't be tortured out of them.

 _I suppose that's a good idea,_ he thought. _I just hope that they thought it through before they built their HQ, because I want to feel like I am safe when we are there._

Almost immediately, Lance laughed internally.

He wanted to feel like he was safe when he was there. That was what he had just admitted to himself.

However, he'd signed up to be in the military. There would be no such thing as safe now, and he knew it. He was a fool if he even entertained the thought of safety.

As soon as twelve of the 36 recruits were all in the back of the van, Lance felt a lurch, and then the thing started driving towards what he assumed was the army base.

The ride was extremely bumpy, as though the road were the surface of the moon. Since there were no seatbelts in the back of the van, Lance felt himself bounce upwards on one occasion before landing painfully on his tail. This had earned him a sneer from a Machamp on the other side of the van.

Lance's eyes watered as he straightened himself out. He was really hoping that this would end soon; he didn't particularly like the back of this van. Every minute felt like five.

After what was probably about an hour, but felt like several hours to Lance, the van finally stopped, and Lance was able to get out of his sitting position at last. He realized just how exhausted travelling had made him; his entire body ached now, but he knew that there was still quite a bit of the journey left to make before he could finally lie down on something approximating a bed.

At least, he sincerely hoped that it would be something resembling a bed. We're talking the military here, so it was far from guaranteed that the accommodations would be anything comfortable.

"We're here" the driver of the van said.

A button must have been pressed somewhere, because the back door of the van opened, and the recruits piled out. As soon as Lance was outside of the van, he saw where they were now.

The sparse greenery surrounding the airport had been replaced with far denser foliage. Even though it was well after six in the evening by now, it was still very hot outside.

"All right" Commander Griffin said. "All of you will be given medical checks to ensure that you are fit to serve. Once that is done, you may proceed to dinner".

 _Dinner,_ Lance thought. His stomach was growling, and he realized that he hadn't had anything to eat since being at Staryubucks with Claire. It really sucked that they hadn't offered anything on the hovercraft, but he supposed that it wasn't the end of the world.

"What happens if we're not fit to serve?" Lance asked Brad. The Blaziken shrugged.

"I'm assuming that they whip you into shape so that you _can_ serve" the Blaziken replied. "There's no going back on the commitment; once you sign that paper, you're theirs".

 _Great,_ Lance thought. _I can't fake a communicable disease to get out of this. Signing that paper was a big commitment._

"Everyone, follow me" Commander Griffin told them. "We're going to be going on a trek through the jungle".

"How long?" one recruit whined. Lance knew that this boy wasn't fit to serve, not at all, if he thought that way.

"We're not telling!" the commander shouted.

The Lucario boy (Lance) didn't know what to think about that. He wasn't in the mood to hike for hours to the headquarters, but, at the same time, he knew what he'd gotten himself into. Could the same be said of the recruit who had, not fifteen seconds ago, whined about the distance?

In a single-file line, the recruits followed the commander onto a trail that led through the jungle. They had started in a clearing, from which some of the late afternoon sky could be seen. After that, however, the canopy became so thick that very little light penetrated it.

The lack of light didn't make the humidity any better. Lance was glad he wasn't wearing any clothes; otherwise, it would have been completely transparent just how much he was sweating. That would have been rather embarrassing for all the other recruits to find out.

Along the way, Lance saw a great many mosquitoes. Normally, the insects were barely visible to the naked eye, but normally Lance wasn't a Lucario. It wasn't as though he exactly had normal vision right about now.

Occasionally, he did have to swat them away. Okay, it wasn't _occasionally,_ it was more like _often._

Because there were tons of them.

Since evening was approaching, the bugs were coming out in full force, not something that any of them liked. He tried not to think about how itchy he'd feel later from all of the bites that he was no doubt getting.

Eventually, they reached a large dirt hole. Looking down into the hole, it was plain to see that a tunnel led underground at a fairly shallow angle.

"This is the entrance to headquarters" Commander Griffin said. "This is not the only way in or out of the Complex, but it's the most efficient one; the others lead into a maze of tunnels".

"And this one is direct?" a recruit asked. Lance saw that it was a Zoroark this time, but not Claire; this one was male.

"Yeah, it's a direct route into the Complex; that's what we call our headquarters. The accommodations aren't that bad, honestly; you'll like them, I should think".

Commander Griffin led them into the hole and down the tunnel. The walls underwent quite the transformation as they walked past them.

At first, they were made out of the same dark brown dirt that the rest of the jungle's floor had been made of. As they descended further and further downward, the walls and floor changed from being made out of dirt to being made of what appeared to be concrete.

They were led down what must have been close to half a mile of tunnel. Lance hated the stale air down here, and it made the walk more tiring than it already was. All he wanted at this point was a decent meal and a decent bed to sleep in. Was that going to be too much to ask?

Finally, they reached the end of the hallway. "Okay" Commander Griffin said. "To the left are the places where we get the health checks done. If you have a communicable disease, you will be sent to the hospital wing in order to recover before beginning training. You got that?"

After everyone nodded and signalled that they did get it, Lance got into the line for the medical checks first. He just wanted to get this over with.

First, he met with a Nurse Joy with a blood pressure cuff. "I'm assuming that you're going to take my blood pressure" he said.

"Yes, that is correct" the Nurse Joy replied. "We're also going to check your height, weight, vision, and hearing, as well as give you any vaccinations that you'll need while you are in Hoenn that you have not already received. We need to make sure that you are fit for duty".

Lance didn't see how vaccination would help once he was actually in Hoenn. However, he supposed that it was better late than never.

After the Lucario boy's blood pressure was checked, he went to the next curtained area, where a woman checked his height and weight.

"You're quite a burly fellow, aren't you?" the woman said.

"Yeah. What are the numbers?" he asked in response.

"You are six feet, two and a half inches tall and weigh a hundred and eighty-six pounds" she replied. "That's within the acceptable range for body mass index. If you were too heavy, you'd have to lose the weight before you could begin service".

 _Oof,_ Lance thought. He pitied those people who had come all the way down here expecting a chance to serve Sinnoh (or Kanto, Johto, or Hoenn, for that matter), only to find out that they weighed too much and therefore couldn't do it.

However, he didn't pity them _too_ much. After all, he barely even felt sorry for himself, in spite of the fact that he did somewhat regret his decision to sign up. He knew that he was getting what was coming to him, and he could at least take some solace in that.

After vision and hearing tests (both of which he aced easily), he was taken to the last curtained area. A man in a white lab coat was looking at the medical records that he had been sent from Lance's primary care physician, checking to see which vaccinations the Lucario boy had and had not received prior to leaving for Hoenn.

"It says here that you're up to date on everything except meningitis type H" the whitecoat said. "That's the only one you'll have to receive today".

"Meningitis type H?" Lance asked. "Never heard of that".

"It's the kind you get in Hoenn" the doctor explained simply. "Because H is for Hoenn".

 _Ah. Makes sense, I guess._

The whitecoat asked Lance to put out his arm so that he could be given the shot, and that was exactly what happened. With no fuss at all, a small bandage was put over the injection site.

Lance stepped off the chair and then kept walking down the hallway. He wasn't afraid of needles at all, so he hadn't had any problems with the vaccine.

 _Let's see this place,_ he thought. He wanted to know if this looked like a place where he could indeed feel at home. After all, he'd just _left_ his home to come here, so it really would have helped his morale if this was a nice place.

As soon as he reached the end of the hallway, he turned a corner to find a large room, with an arrow sign pointing towards it that said, "THE HUB".

The Hub was a large dining hall, with several pillars holding the place up. At all tables, recruits were eating dinner. It wasn't clear exactly what they were eating, but it didn't look very appetizing from this angle; some sort of soup, maybe?

It was not as though Lance had anything against soup; in fact, he loved it very much, particularly when he was sick. However, right now, he was craving something a little more substantial.

 _I want pizza,_ he thought. _A pepperoni pizza with tons and tons of cheese. But I don't think they have that here. Which is a shame._

Lance found a spot where a full bowl of soup had been set down. The dining room, rather than appearing like it would be found in a military area, looked from the inside more like that at a fancy hotel. It reminded Lance of the time his family ate dinner at the Pastoria Country Club. That room had been quite fancy, and so was this one.

 _These accommodations aren't far off a five-star hotel,_ Lance thought to himself. _I could feel at home here. I really could._

The soup appeared to contain some type of meatballs, with pasta. Unfortunately, it was a little cold; it had been sitting out for some time. At this point, however, Lance didn't care about something so trivial as that.

 _It's food, you dolt,_ he told himself. _Eat it. Because you never know what breakfast's going to be._

Claire managed to find Lance again, and she sat down at the place next to him.

"Do you know where we'll be sleeping?" she asked the Lucario boy.

Lance shook his head. "I don't" he replied. "I guess we don't have too long to find out".

"A very good thing we don't have a ton of luggage" the Zoroark replied. "Otherwise, it would be quite annoying to lug it all in here, wouldn't it be?"

The Lucario nodded. "Yeah...I wouldn't want to do that".

As soon as they were done with their soup, Lance stepped up from his seat. He felt as though the other recruits were staring at him; not a pleasant feeling in the slightest.

 _Do they somehow know I'm Lance Grant?,_ he wondered. _The boy who turned into a Lucario? If so, my goose is COOKED._

He knew that he wasn't likely to face any form of punishment for it - after all, it wasn't as though it was his fault he had turned into a Lucario. At the same time, however, it was very difficult to ignore the fact that he was a celebrity, and would no doubt be treated as such if anyone recognized him from the TV ads.

 _Let's just hope they don't,_ he thought.

* * *

He didn't know how long he'd been aimlessly wandering around the Hub until a military officer came by.

This one was a short, skinny human being. His nametag identified him as Officer Reed Gray. He didn't look particularly like a soldier, but looks could be deceiving, as Lance knew all too well.

"Can I help you?" Officer Gray asked him.

"Yeah" Lance said. "I'm looking for my barracks. I want to know where I'm sleeping tonight".

Officer Gray scrutinized the Lucario boy. "Are you Lance Grant?"

"Yes" Lance replied reluctantly and quietly. "That's me. The same guy who became famous for it and was shown on TV".

"I don't care. You're not famous here, kid. You're just Lance Grant".

 _I think I'm famous just by virtue of being Lance Grant, but okay,_ he thought. He supposed it didn't matter; in fact, he didn't want to attract too much attention here. He just wanted to be a normal recruit, at least for now.

"Okay. But where am I sleeping?"

Officer Gray pointed down the hallway. "Down the hall and to the left" he said. "You're in room 804. It's very hard to miss".

Lance nodded and made his way into the hall.

Even following the man's instructions, it was a little difficult to find the door. He probably passed it several times before he actually noticed it, which wasn't surprising, considering that the hallways all looked the same. So did the doors, minus the numbers.

 _This place looks just like a hotel,_ Lance realized. _I hope the sleeping arrangements are just as nice as a hotel._

After what felt like an eternity, he found the room. And he was surprised by just how nice it looked.

The floor was made of a hard green rug, with some golden yellow stripes. There were two cots, much like rollaway beds that some hotels offered to those staying there.

Sitting on one of the cots was another Lucario. This one was reading through a book, the title of which Lance didn't bother reading.

"Hello" Lance said.

The other Lucario didn't even look up from the book he'd been reading. He continued staring at the pages, as though expecting them to reveal a magic spell.

"I'm your new roommate" our hero said, trying to get the other Lucario's attention.

Nothing. The other Lucario was still completely engrossed in the text. It was then that Lance realized what he should do.

"I'm Lance Grant" he said. "The guy from Sinnoh who turned into a Lucario".

The other Lucario dropped the book he'd been reading. "Really?"

Lance nodded. "One and the same".

"Thanks. My name's Troy" the other Lucario replied. "Nice to meet you".

After Lance nodded at Troy, he asked if they could head to bed. After all, it was getting quite late; Lance had spent more time in those hallways than he cared to admit.

"In a bit, okay?" Troy replied. "I'm still reading a bit of my book".

Lance sat on his bed until Troy said he was done with the chapter. The entire time, he was looking around the room, feeling very trapped indeed.

He'd thought that he'd feel relieved once he had arrived at his barracks. He'd thought that he'd be able to put all of the worry behind him and focus on being the best soldier-in-training he could be.

As it turned out, however, he felt more trapped than he ever had before in his life. Not only had he made the irreversible commitment to come down here to Hoenn, in essence trapping himself, he'd also gone deep underground here, and being underground made him feel trapped.

He couldn't help but wonder if the entire place could come crashing in on them. It might have been a rather silly worry - no doubt the place was more structurally sound than it appeared to be - but Lance just couldn't shake it.

 _Shut up, mind,_ he told himself. _Don't just worry about things you can't control._

The only problem was that, in a way, worrying was what Lance did best. He wasn't proud of it. He often denied it, saying that he was a realist rather than a pessimist. But the truth was, he was a pessimist.

As soon as Troy turned out the lights, Lance laid back in bed and tried to get some sleep. It took a while, but he eventually sank into a nightmare.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading this chapter! Like I said, longest one yet. I also hope you'll review and tell me what you thought of it, as that is the most reliable way for me to find out your opinions on what I have written.**

 **Until next time, this has been SnowLucario.**


	8. The First Morning

**Thank you all for 1,000 views! This story is growing at a pretty decent rate, and I'm happy with that. This isn't the longest chapter, but I think it's a respectable length. I know that this story is going to be so much fun to write, and it's all thanks to you guys. You're the people who keep me going, everybody who reads.**

 **In other news, my brother turned 20 recently. I got to talk to him on the phone, and it was quite nice. I have an interview for an internship today, and I'm hoping it goes well. I'm 17, almost 18...I should probably get _something_ on my resume besides spending an ungodly amount of time writing fanfiction.**

 **Anyway, enjoy this chapter.**

* * *

In the dream, Lance was once again standing in the middle of the wilderness. However, his surroundings were slightly different than they had been in the other nightmares he'd had.

In this one, he looked to his right, and there was the same dense jungle that he'd become accustomed to. To the left, there was the ocean, undulating at a rapid pace.

It was then that Lance realized it was raining. Large, fat drops of water were falling from the sky and saturating his fur.

 _This really sucks. Not only am I alone in the middle of the jungle, but it's pouring. Because fuck my life._

Like the others he'd had before, this one was a lucid dream, one in which he was aware that he was dreaming.

 _I can wake up whenever I want,_ Lance told himself. _I'm not trapped here, no matter how much it might feel that way._

He knew that he was only trying to convince himself of that. He didn't have any actual evidence for that, at least not yet.

So he tried to wake up. He told himself that all was well, that this was just a dream, one he could wake up from.

However, no matter how hard he tried, he remained trapped in this dream world. He tried not to feel fear, but that made him wonder, _Have I really woken up? Is this real life?_

He sure as hell hoped that he wasn't wrong about this being a dream. He was already soaked to the skin, as though he had been standing there for some time already. Lance probably would not have gotten any more wet if he had thrown himself into the ocean; that was the point to which things had come.

Lance knew that he was going to be under fire soon. He didn't want to experience what it was like being shot firsthand; he wanted to leave that to stories he could read on the Internet, not his own life experiences.

 _I ran,_ he thought. _I ran so far away last time...where should I go?_

After debating internally with himself, he started running into the jungle, nearly tripping over a series of tree roots along the way. He could hear the sound of gunfire behind him and knew that the enemy was closing in.

 _No...I MUST get away!_

Once Lance took a quick turn to the left, he was suddenly body-checked like a hockey player. He fell to the ground painfully, the wind being knocked out of him in one fell swoop.

"Thought you could run from me, eh?" a young man said.

This man didn't _appear_ young, but something told Lance that he couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old or so. He was pointing an AR-15 directly at the Lucario boy's heart.

Adrenaline kicked in, but Lance feared that it might have already been too late to get away. He didn't know if he'd feel the pain of a gunshot in his dream, but he _did_ know that he'd rather not stick around in order to find out.

Unfortunately, he had no choice. The young man was also a burly one, with a shaved head and bad teeth. He was significantly stronger than Lance, and was able to pin him to the ground with ease.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't shoot you" the man snarled, and Lance scrambled to think of one. Of course, he didn't think that anything would sway this man to his side; after all, this man had gone to the trouble to pin him to the ground. He wouldn't just back away like that.

"My family" Lance choked out. It wasn't easy to do this, as the gun was now aimed at his throat. He was barely able to say the words.

The man jutted the barrel of the gun directly into his neck, and Lance felt the bone break. He'd need emergency surgery right away in order to have a chance of surviving. Which, of course, wasn't going to happen here.

"Well, that's that" the man said quickly. "Don't think that's a good reason, Grant".

Lance hadn't thought that it was a good reason at all. After all, this man presumably had a family he wanted to get back to. It didn't really make any difference who wouldn't live to see their family once more.

As he lay there dying, Lance tried not to despair…

...only to open his eyes and find that it had indeed been only a dream.

 _But it could become my reality,_ Lance realized. That was the scary thing. He'd signed up for this military commitment, essentially signing his life away to these people. And he hadn't even _had_ to do it; Chief Talent had definitely given him the option to opt out.

 _No, it's worth it,_ he told himself. _It's all going to be worth it. I'm going to live._

Just to make sure it was still there, Lance patted his neck, then checked his surroundings once more.

The room was still dark, and he could hear the sounds of Troy snoring. It must have still been the middle of the night, but it couldn't be verified, since there was no clock in the room.

 _Of course there's no clock,_ Lance thought to himself. _This is a military barracks. They're going to wake us up when they wake us up._

One invention Lance hated more than almost anything else was the alarm clock. He hated how it would wake one from a dead sleep to the most obnoxious noise a human being (or Pokemon, he reminded himself, patting his chest spike gingerly). He didn't think that being woken up by the yell of a drill sergeant would be that much better.

Of course, he'd made his bed, and now he'd have to lie in it. Given where he currently was, he felt that this was an apt idiom to use.

Eventually, he managed to get back to sleep, but it wasn't anything close to easy.

This time, he didn't have any dreams. It was as though he had been given an anesthetic - one second he was awake, and then, what seemed like seconds later, he was awake again, only a lot more time had passed than that.

There was a knock on the door so powerful that Lance thought the door might get bashed in. "WAKE UP!" the drill sergeant's voice yelled. "IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP!"

The noise gave Lance a headache, but he managed to sit up and rub his eyes. He noticed that his roommate was already awake, but looked no less tired.

"Let's get out of here, Troy" Lance said. "We should probably head to breakfast".

The other Lucario nodded. "Yes, let's".

They both got out of bed and opened the door. Luckily, Commander Griffin (it was plain to see that it was him) had moved on to the next door. It wouldn't have served either of them well to accidentally slam the door into the commander.

Lance had been worried that, after taking so long to find his room last night, he would have a similarly difficult time trying to find the Hub. After all, it was a pretty large maze of tunnels, not a place that one would find easy to navigate.

"Here we are" Lance said eventually. Looking behind him, he noticed that Troy must have either gotten lost or taken a different route. For a moment, Lance actually considered going back to get him.

 _No,_ he thought, _not worth it._

After he found where Claire and Brad were sitting, he looked around the room.

At each seat had been placed a bowl of cereal with milk and an apple. There was nothing else, and there were over five hundred recruits in the Hub right now. It was clear to see that everybody had the same thing.

"Why is it just cereal?" Brad asked. "What about something more substantial, like eggs, bacon, or toast?"

"I don't know" Claire replied. "But I suppose that there's probably some reason for that. Probably they just can't get the other types of food that you mention".

Brad nodded. When they noticed that Lance had come to sit next to them, they raised their glasses of water for a toast.

"I'm not in the mood for that, sorry" the Lucario boy replied. "I'm just not".

"Why not?" Claire asked. The Zoroark was eating her cereal with gusto, appearing very disappointed indeed that that was all there was besides the apple.

"Look...I had a nightmare last night" Lance said. He hadn't thought that he would be so forthcoming so soon, but he figured that the risk was worth it. After all, Claire seemed to trust him.

"What kind of nightmare?" Brad asked. The Blaziken was lounging back in his seat as though he were in first class on an airplane, enjoying life, rather than being about to start training for the military.

"I just dreamed that we were in the jungle, under fire" Lance replied. "Or, _I_ was. You guys weren't in the dream".

"You'd better get ready", Brad replied. "Because that's going to be your reality pretty soon".

Claire shot the Blaziken a glare, as if to say, _You're not helping._

Lance shrugged. "I suppose you're right. I'm just hoping that they have some kind of body armor here, otherwise I'm screwed. I don't want to be completely exposed out in the wilderness".

"We'll learn a lot of defensive techniques, I'm sure" Claire replied. However, she didn't sound too confident, as though she were as worried as Lance.

The Lucario boy doubted that this was the case. Lance had always had a reputation, both at school and at home, as being a big worrier. To be fair, he'd earned it - he was often concerned about things that only had the slightest probability of coming to pass. But, judging by the situation he now found himself in, weren't the worries justified?

"I'm loving this place. Really feels like a hotel to me" Brad said eventually, trying to break the tension. "Like I'm just here in Hoenn on vacation".

"I'm glad you see it that way" Lance replied. "Because I sure don't".

Claire rolled her eyes as if to say, _Boys,_ and then got up from her seat.

"Uh...why are you getting up?" Lance asked, getting up and following her.

"Because I need to use the facilities" she replied in a slightly prissy voice. "Got a problem with that?"

"No, no, nature calls" the Lucario boy replied, raising his paws in the air.

He went back to his seat to sit next to Brad. He definitely appeared more relaxed than anybody in his situation probably should have been.

"Aren't you nervous?" Lance asked Brad. "I would think that you'd be nervous".

"No, I'm not" the Blaziken replied. "I know that there are going to be some things in there I can't control, but there are also going to be plenty of things I _can_ control. And you can be sure that I'll work to keep those things that I can control, _under_ control. It'll be fine. For me, at least".

 _Very helpful advice indeed,_ Lance thought.

When at last breakfast was over, and Claire had returned from the restroom, Lance didn't know where to go at first.

"My roommate's been here for a few months" the Zoroark said. "She says that you're to report to the scheduling room for a temporary tattoo".

"What's the purpose of the temporary tattoo?" Lance asked.

"It's of your schedule here" Claire replied. "They stamp your hand, and it'll stay on until it fades tonight. Wherever you're expected, you'll know where to go".

Really, that sounded like a pretty good system to Lance. There was only one problem.

"How does it show up on my fur?" he asked Claire. "I wouldn't think that it would".

"My roommate didn't tell me that" the Zoroark replied. "But trust me, I wish I had asked her. I suppose we'll find out soon".

Lance was right now wishing that he'd asked Troy more questions. If his roommate wasn't a new recruit, he could indeed have been a lot of help. But instead, Lance had been in such a hurry to get out of his room that he hadn't done that.

He'd just left, like some kind of antisocial jerk. Lance had always been told, from an early age, not to act antisocial, but he wasn't doing a great job of it right now.

Sure enough, just like Claire had said, a line had started to form towards an area outside the Hub. The middle of the dining hall now had an enormous line of the approximately five hundred recruits, and most of them appeared quite calm, as if they did this every day.

Of course, if Claire's roommate was to be believed, they _did_ do this every day.

The line, which snaked its way through the dining hall, moved fairly quickly. It seemed as though each person took only about five seconds or so to do whatever they needed to do in order to pass.

 _Five hundred beings times five seconds each...that's two thousand, five hundred seconds. Or 41 minutes, 40 seconds. This is going to take a while._

Lance didn't even try to make small talk with any of the other recruits. They were all of various sizes and shapes, owing to being from different species of Pokemon and human, but most of them had the same no-nonsense expression as Commander Griffin had had.

As the line kept moving, Lance kept looking at his left arm. He was assuming that was where he was going to get tattooed. Whenever he'd had to get shots at the doctor's office, they had been in his left arm, owing to the fact that he was right-handed. _Always best to do the hand you don't write with,_ he thought.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he reached the front of the line. It was now clear to see the process.

Most of the recruits in front of him were holding out their left hands for the stamp. Some of them were holding out their right hands, so Lance guessed that those were the ones who were left-handed.

As he got closer and closer, Lance could see that some sort of number appeared to be on the screen. What purpose this number served, he had no idea, but he could tell that it was important. A lot of the recruits appeared to be looking at it carefully.

Finally, he reached the front of the line. After appearing to quickly scan him, the machine read "#F8693D" for a brief second.

 _It's a hexadecimal code,_ Lance realized. _Like the ones they use to describe colors._

Lance knew about the whole RGB system, how #FF0000, for example, indicated that the object held as much red as there could possibly be, with absolutely no green or blue.

 _Let's see what my schedule holds,_ he thought. _It'll definitely be interesting to see._

After holding out his paw, he was stamped with his schedule, and he was able to see, in bright orange ink, what he had to do.

 _0800 - Target practice_

 _0930 - Aquatics_

 _1100 - Lunch_

 _1130 - Edible plants_

 _1300 - Weaponry_

 _1500 - Ziplining_

 _1730 - Dinner_

 _1800 - Announcements_

 _1900 - Back to Quarters_

 _2100 - Lights out_

 _Not a grueling first day, I see..._ Lance thought. _Wait a minute. Does it really say that there?_

Yes, indeed it did.

 _We're going to go ziplining today? I guess that it'll teach us how to use rope systems properly; there are going to be a lot of cliff crossings in the jungle, I guess?_

Really, his guess was as good as anybody else's. All he knew was that there would be ziplining today, and he couldn't have been more excited. That had been something he'd wanted to do ever since he was a kid.

 _Maybe signing up for the Hoenn Army wasn't such a bad idea after all,_ he thought. _Not if there's ziplining involved!_

Over the next few minutes, as he walked back towards the room he'd stayed in (figuring that that was the way to target practice, since, as far as he had seen, no hallways had branched out from the tunnel that led to the Hub), he glanced back at the orange ink on his arm, making sure that it said what he thought it said.

Each time, he was not disappointed. For whatever reason, it sure appeared that they were going to go ziplining, and he was excited as hell for it.

 _Don't get too ahead of yourself, Lance,_ he told himself. _After all, you could still be hallucinating._

Given that he'd never had any hallucinations before, at least not that he knew of, he found that prospect highly unlikely.

Back at his room, he found Troy, who was tidying up his space a little bit, placing his books underneath his bed.

"Troy?" Lance asked his roommate.

"Yeah?" the other Lucario said, raising his head to look at Lance. "What's up?"

"I was just wondering where target practice was" Lance replied. "As you surely know, I'm new here, and I need to be there at eight".

"That's not too hard to find" Troy replied. "You just go down the hall and to the left. Once you're there, it's just a couple of right turns, and then at the end of the hallway, you'll find the room".

"Okay. Thanks, Troy".

"No problem" the other Lucario said. "Good luck. Target practice isn't easy, Lance".

Those words took Lance by surprise. More specifically, the name that Lance had been called. His real name.

 _Don't worry about it,_ he said to himself. _It's not a big deal. He just heard your name somewhere, and that's obviously what he's going to call you._

Somehow, though, Lance felt that there must have been some kind of ulterior motive there. He was often skeptical of others, skeptical that they had his best interests at heart.

 _Does he know that I'm Lance Grant? THE famous Lance Grant? The guy who turned into a Lucario?_

Somehow, that idea didn't seem unthinkable to the Lucario boy. The more he thought about it, the more plausible it sounded.

 _Of course, they're going to be given briefings about it, so that they know everything that they need to know. And it makes sense that they'd need to know this...oh, why, Arceus, why?_

Lance wasn't particularly religious, but he did blame Arceus for some things. Certainly, this was one of them. If Arceus had something to do with this...Lance was going to be angry with the deity once he had made it to the afterlife.

 _Which might not be that long._

He tried to think positively, that he'd last long enough to see this war through, if indeed there was going to be a war. However, with so many dark thoughts he was having, it didn't seem likely that things would turn out all right.

He finally found the target practice room. Troy's directions had been pretty good, thankfully, and he hadn't gotten very lost at all. Looking at the clock, finally able to get a sense of what time it was, he saw that he was a couple of minutes early.

 _Am I going to have to use Aura Spheres for ammunition at these targets? If so…_

Lance shivered. He didn't know how to use Aura Spheres effectively; after all, he had only just become a Lucario. He got the feeling that learning how to do so would be an uphill battle indeed.

Over the next five minutes, about a dozen more recruits filed into the room. They were various species of Pokemon, as well as a few humans, although Lance didn't pay much attention to the other recruits.

He instead took that time to survey the room a little more.

Weapons were lined up along the walls, which were dark gray and metallic, just like the floor. Targets, made up of yellow, red, and blue concentric circles, were set in one corner of the room. All in all, it looked pretty organized.

The instructor, a white-furred Lucario, walked to the front of the room. He had a whistle around his neck, and it was clear to see that he meant business. He wasn't fooling around.

"My name is General Whitefur" he said. "I am the head of target practice here, and I'm going to teach you recruits how to hit the enemy effectively. When you're in the middle of the jungle with a rifle, you're going to need to know how to hit them in the places that _hurt"._

Those words sent a chill down Lance's spine. He wasn't a complete pacifist, but neither was he on board with the whole idea of take-no-prisoners warfare. He wasn't too sure that he liked the idea of being absolutely ruthless, as General Whitefur said.

 _For the last time, Lance,_ he told himself, _stop thinking so much about what you don't want to do. No matter what, you have to do it. You signed up for this, so ACT LIKE IT._

"Okay" General Whitefur said. "First on our list is...Lance Grant".


	9. Revelations

**I might get a little distracted from writing in the future by the fact that I have joined a Discord server dedicated to my favorite TV show, _Survivor._ As a super-fan who owns 27 buffs, this may take up some of my time. I still plan to get chapters out on time, however. **

**I also am going back to school soon after April vacation. It was a productive vacation. I got my wisdom teeth out and went to two college visits. Junior year can be quite a stressful one.**

 **In any case, enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

Lance shivered at the sound of his name.

There were about twelve others in the room, and any of them could have been called on to do this instead. But _no,_ he'd had to be chosen.

 _Am I going to embarrass myself here or what?,_ he wondered. _I don't even know how to use Aura Sphere yet._

Worse still, if these new recruits hadn't already found out about the fact that Lance Grant was attending the same "academy", for lack of a better word, they sure knew now. He knew that it was going to be difficult to get rid of the reputation that came with being the guy who had turned into a Lucario. Which, to be fair, was true. He _had_ transformed into a Lucario just a few days ago.

"What weapon do you want me to use?" he asked General Whitefur. "Aura Spheres? Guns? Javelins?"

The general looked pretty annoyed that he had to spell it out for him. "You're going to be using your special attacks on these targets. So, yes, Aura Spheres will suffice. Do you have a problem with that?"

Lance raised both of his paws. "No, sir, I d-".

"Then don't complain, just do it".

After he sighed quietly, Lance attempted to form an Aura Sphere in his paw. He didn't want to admit that he wasn't able to do it, because that wouldn't have had a good result. At the very least, he'd be publicly humiliated, and nobody liked public humiliation.

After about five seconds of this, Lance decided that it was better to bite the bullet and admit that he didn't know how to use the attack. It was better the embarrassment of admitting he wasn't able to than the embarrassment of actually trying and messing up somehow.

"I don't know how" the Lucario boy said in as clear a voice as he could muster. He was trying to keep the embarrassment out of it, but it was hard. Very hard.

He could hear the sounds of a few other recruits laughing, but General Whitefur raised one of his own paws. "Quiet, everybody!" he snapped.

When a general told you to be quiet, you didn't want to disobey him. Thankfully, no one did. Lance stood there, thoroughly ashamed of himself. He could swear that his blue fur was turning purple from the shame and embarrassment.

"Not to worry, Lance" he said. "There's someone here who is willing to teach you the ways of aura. Would you like me to escort you to him?"

"I can find it myself, thanks" Lance replied, trying not to sound angry. He had been inclined to sound like he was trying to be a tough guy, but he knew based on the prison movies he'd seen that this wasn't a good idea. More than likely, it would only result in others targeting him, something he wanted even less.

"It's down the hall and to the left" General Whitefur said. He was sounding a lot kinder than he had not two minutes before, and Lance had to wonder what the cause of such a monumental shift in his demeanor was.

 _Don't worry about it,_ he told himself. _Most likely, he just wants something from you. That's what all the commanders want, isn't it?_

Somehow, Lance felt that it might have been a little more complicated than that. However, he did follow the instructor's directions towards the room he'd been told about.

It wasn't hard to find. Just three doors down the hallway, there was a fork in the path. This led to a door that had _JP, Aura Specialist_ , written on it.

 _JP, huh?_ , Lance thought. _That's a bit of an odd name for an aura specialist, but if it's a Lucario...never mind. The point is, I guess this person's supposed to help me with aura or something._

He knocked on the door. After a few seconds, there was a voice on the other side. "Come in" the voice said, and Lance did.

Sitting behind a desk, there was a man who appeared to be in his late forties. He looked somewhat like Lance's father, except that he had a beard, whereas Mr. Grant was clean-shaven. He looked almost like a surfer dude, someone you would expect to have a casual conversation with, whereas Lance's dad was a lot more formal in the way he conducted himself.

"Hello. Are you JP?" Lance asked the man.

He nodded. "Yes, I am JP. My initials are JP, but everyone just calls me that. Honestly, I like it that way".

"No problem with calling you that. It says you're an aura specialist?"

"Yes. General Whitefur paged me, telling me that you'd be coming. You don't know how to use aura yet?"

Lance frowned. "I'm afraid not".

"Well, he sent you to the right person. Lucas can always be quite efficient with that".

"Wait" the Lucario boy replied. "General Whitefur's first name is Lucas?"

"Yep" JP replied. "Not that it matters too much. The point is that you're here to learn how to use aura, and I'm going to teach you how to do it. You got that?"

Lance nodded. "I'm fully determined to become trained in the ways of aura. I don't care how long it takes, that's what I want to do. Because I genuinely think that I should know how to use it".

"Quite" the aura specialist said. "These are important techniques indeed. You're going to have to pick them up if you are to have any success on the battlefield".

This caused a shiver to run down the Lucario boy's spine. He didn't particularly like the idea of being on the battlefield. Even with the constant reminders all around him that he was preparing to fight in a war, he wasn't able to warm himself up to the idea. Which was a big problem, because he'd need to have his head in the game all the time.

"First off", JP said, "imagine a field of aura all around you. That's how it is, really. There really is aura surrounding all living things".

Lance had heard of that before; he'd always heard stories about aura, such as those about Sir Aaron and the kingdom he had saved. He'd had the awareness, of course, that those stories were not just stories. Aura was a living, breathing thing that existed today.

Lance tried to focus and imagine that. Aura was always depicted as blue in the artwork he'd seen in various cathedrals he'd visited with his family, and, quite honestly, that was something that surprised him. If aura was relatively immaterial, wouldn't it make sense for it to not have any particular color.

 _Oh, well._ He supposed that it wouldn't do to get bogged down in all of the formalities of aura. Today, he was just going to learn the basics.

"I can sense myself!" Lance exclaimed, like someone on a zipline being excited about it feeling like they were flying.

The crazy thing was, it was true. The more he tried to focus on it, the crazier it seemed, but it also seemed truer. His entire being was saturated with a blue shield, a shield that showed what kind of health he was in.

"Indeed you can" JP replied. "You can check out your own health status, as well as that of others, just using aura. It's really quite an amazing thing. Can you tell anything about me?"

Lance saw something that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Somehow, however, he knew that he was right when he said it.

"You got very sick when you were five years old" Lance said. "Pneumonia?"

"You're a natural, Lance!" JP exclaimed. "That's true; that did happen to me at that age. Even illnesses I've fully recovered from can be sensed. I can tell that _you_ haven't gotten sick in a while".

"Yeah" the Lucario boy replied. "I guess my immune system is pretty strong".

"Moreover, aura tends to boost one's immune system" JP said. "So Lucario tend to get sick a lot less. And, let me tell you, your aura is _bright"._

"It is?" Lance asked. He wasn't sure that he could tell how bright his aura was. He supposed that it was due to the fact that he was a relative newbie to how this whole thing called aura worked.

"Yeah" JP replied. "Really, it's like looking directly into a Q-beam. You know what those are, right?"

Lance did know what they were. When they went on vacation to the beach and were on the boat at night, his father would use a massive flashlight to see forward. He'd firmly warned Lance not to look at said flashlight, as doing so would be very bad for his eyes.

"Yeah" he replied. "So my aura's very bright. What does that mean?"

"It means", the man replied, "that you'll probably have an easier time than most learning how to use aura techniques. Of course, _using_ them is the easy part".

Lance gulped. "What is the hard part, then?"

JP scratched his chin. "The hard part is learning how to control them so that they are more effective. Forming an Aura Sphere is fairly easy; it's learning how to fire it so that they don't blow up in your face that is hard".

Judging by the way JP said it, Lance knew that he wasn't kidding, and was using no form of hyperbole. He was saying what was _literally true._

"Well, I certainly don't want it to blow up in my face" the Lucario boy replied.

"Indeed" the aura specialist said. "I want you to try it, now. Try making an Aura Sphere in your paw. Concentrate, and keep in mind that this is tiring, because you are taking aura from your own body in order to do this".

Lance held his paw out and concentrated as hard as he could. He tried to envision a ball of blue forming in his paw.

Nothing happened. This wasn't surprising, as it was his first time trying. He imagined that he'd need a lot more practice than just this in order to master it.

"Where do I fire the spheres?" asked the Lucario boy. "I don't want to break anything".

"The walls are pretty absorbent" JP replied. "Really, you can aim them anywhere in this room that isn't at me. Target practice isn't necessary for you today".

 _Then why did they put it in my schedule?,_ Lance thought to himself, slightly indignantly. Some things just didn't make any sense at all.

"So, try again" the man said. "Try again, and don't forget to focus. It won't happen if you don't focus".

Lance did as he was told. Trying to clear his mind of everything else, like a meditating monk, he imagined a sphere of blue forming in his paw. Closing his eyes for a few seconds before once again opening them and looking at his paw, he saw something incredible.

There was now a blue sphere there roughly the size of a golf ball. It was a cute little Aura Sphere.

"Nice!" JP exclaimed. "Fire it wherever you want, as long as it's not at me".

Lance, since he was feeling quite grateful towards the man for teaching him, didn't fire it towards JP. Instead, he aimed it at the distant wall and "pushed" it slightly towards the wall.

The Aura Sphere soared through the air at a fairly fast speed before hitting the wall. The room shook slightly, but no parts of the roof fell in.

"I see what you mean when you say they're absorbent" Lance replied. "These really are good walls".

"Yeah. They have shock absorbers built into them, which explains why this whole room doesn't explode. Trust me, that took a while to build, but it was worth it. We teach other recruits how to use their techniques in this room as well".

 _Good. At least I'm not the only one,_ the Lucario boy thought. He didn't know how he'd feel if he had been the only one.

They spent the next hour trying various aura techniques. After perfecting the Aura Spheres a little more, to the point that he could form one the size of a cantaloupe, JP taught Lance how to create a Bone Rush. Much like an Aura Sphere, this technique required one to use a little of their own aura in order to create a weapon.

He made it clear, however, that learning how to use aura took time. Lance wasn't going to just get it in one ninety-minute session, particularly since he hadn't been born as a Lucario.

"I'm telling you, Lance, if you had been born and bred as a Lucario, this would be so much easier. But I'm not going to fault you for who you are".

"Thanks" the Lucario boy replied. "That means a lot to me".

"You're welcome" JP replied.

Once the clock on the wall hit 9:27 AM, JP told Lance to head back and meet his class. "You should probably go to your next...I don't know if you'd call it an activity or what".

Lance didn't know if he'd call it an activity either. To him, the word "activity" had a different connotation than these exercises he was going to be forced to do in training. These were more like exercises. Yes, that was the proper word for them.

"Thanks, JP" the Lucario boy said as he turned around to head through the door.

He heard the aura specialist say "You're welcome" behind him, but Lance didn't turn around to see him. Even if it was rude, Lance often avoided eye contact with others, for reasons even he didn't always understand.

After he met back up with General Whitefur and the other recruits, the general gave no indication that he noticed or cared that Lance Grant had been gone, which was just fine with the Lucario boy. Indeed, that was preferable; he didn't want to attract any more attention than he already had attracted.

That was another thing. He didn't particularly like how he was the center of attention now, how everybody seemed to want to know about him. He'd hoped that, now that he was far away from Sinnoh, far to the south in Hoenn, he wouldn't attract nearly as much attention. Clearly, he was wrong on that count.

 _Oh, well,_ he thought. _It's going to be fine. I'm safe from the news media here._

As he walked out into the hallway, however, he wasn't so sure about that. He had a feeling that, at any moment, the cameras would come back, and then he'd be completely and totally screwed.

* * *

According to the bright orange tattoo on his arm, his next lesson was going to be Aquatics at 9:30 AM.

 _They probably should have let us out of there earlier,_ thought Lance, slightly angrily. _So that we'd have time to get to our next program, or whatever you want to call it._

He supposed that it didn't particularly matter; all that he cared about now was simply getting there, and, after that, he could deal with the consequences if he was late. He had little doubt that there would be consequences; the question was just how severe they would be.

Somehow, he met Troy in the hallway. He could tell it was Troy because...he just could. Probably it had something to do with the aura abilities that he was just now beginning to master, so maybe it was that Troy's aura was different from the others.

It wasn't particularly bright, and so Lance didn't think that there were any other circumstances surrounding the fact that he was a Lucario. Troy appeared to be a Lucario by birth.

But then Lance reminded himself that Troy could be quite helpful to him. He needed to figure out how to get to Aquatics, and his roommate might just have the answer for him.

"Excuse me?" Lance asked.

The other Lucario turned around. "Oh, it's _you._ What do you want?"

Lance was taken aback by Troy's terse manner, but he decided that it didn't matter all that much. Either way, he was going to get this information somehow.

"Where is Aquatics?"

Troy gave him directions. Even though he appeared to be doing so reluctantly, Lance was still very grateful for them. Once he reached the place where it was being held, he hoped that, somehow, he wouldn't get in trouble for being late. That his sin could be forgiven.

The smell of the pool got closer and closer to him, and he soon realized that he'd come to the right place.

The lifeguard, a Buizel, stood in front of the door to the pool room, looking very grumpy indeed.

"You're late" he said.

Lance raised his arms like a suspected criminal about to be taken into custody by the police. "Sorry" he said. "I just got a little confused about where to go. I'm new here, you see?"

The Buizel lifeguard studied him for a few seconds. "Lance Grant?" he asked eventually.

The Lucario boy nodded.

Buizel suddenly smiled. "Yeah, I've heard of you. It's no problem. We're about to start our first exercises, so you're really just in time. We were only waiting for you for ten minutes or so".

That was another thing about Lance. He felt guilty very easily, even if it was for the smallest and most minor of offenses. Even just being a little late was hard for him to take, since he always was one to be punctual.

"Anyway, you don't need a swimsuit. You are a Lucario. Just take a quick shower in order to get some of that sweat off of your fur".

Lance nodded as the Buizel lifeguard pointed him to where the showers were. The Lucario boy took a thirty-second shower before heading into the pool room. And, really, it was unbelievable.

The pool room was roughly the size of four football fields, with a swimming pool extending nearly to the ends of the room. There were some lap lanes and some more open areas.

As Lance looked towards the other end of the room, he saw that a couple of Eeveelutions were among the ten other recruits. There was a Flareon, Glaceon, and Espeon visible, among two Vaporeons. There were also two Buizel, two Zoroarks, and one Pikachu.

It was then that he realized something: _The Zoroark was Claire._

Given the fact that Claire had a blue ponytail, it wasn't hard for Lance to realize that. There was no doubt in his mind that it was her.

 _So what do I do now?,_ he thought. _Do I ask her out?_

 _No, this is completely the wrong time to do that,_ the rational side of his brain responded. _Trust me, you don't want the instructor mad at you. Which is exactly what's going to happen. He'll be mad at you if you ask Claire out right now._

The rational side of Lance's mind was telling him to ignore the fact that Claire was here, that he had to focus on what he was about to be taught, while the emotional side was telling him that he really wanted to tell Claire his feelings about her.

Because, at this point, there was no doubt at all that he had feelings for the blue-maned Zoroark. The only question was, was Lance gutsy enough to admit it?

 _I don't know._ That was the most honest answer the Lucario boy, or anyone else, could have given.

"All right, class" the Buizel said. "My name is Mr. Buido, and I'm the Aquatics instructor here at the academy. I'm a fully certified lifeguard, and I'm able to save lives if need be, although I'd really rather nobody needed saving".

He seemed to be looking at the Zoroark who wasn't Claire when he said that, as though there was a story behind that comment. Lance decided not to ask.

Lance, who had walked over and sat next to the others, found himself zoning out as Mr. Buido gave further instructions. He was too focused on all the other thoughts making their way through his mind.

 _Oh, boy,_ he thought. _This is going to be crazy. I'll finally get to see what Claire looks like when she's in the water!_ That was the more primal part of his brain talking, the part that desired romance.

 _Drop it, idiot,_ the rational side of his mind said. _You came here to focus on training for the military. So ACT LIKE IT._

As Mr. Buido started talking to them about what they would have to do in Aquatics, Lance looked over and saw something that he'd never be able to un-see.

It was Claire's aura. It bore an unmistakable hint of something, that, using his own aura skills, Lance was able to pick up on.

This wasn't easy to do, mind you, since there were quite a few other people in the steamy pool room. However, it was easy enough for Lance to tell one thing.

Claire had once been a human.


	10. Romance vs Rationality

**Here comes Chapter 10. We're now into the double digits, people!**

 **I've started school again, so I might have a little less time to write. Or I might not. We'll see.**

* * *

 _How did I know that?,_ Lance wondered. Somehow, his brain was still confused as to why his aura had been able to sense that.

He tried telling himself that the way he knew it didn't matter. What did matter was that he now had an answer, an answer, moreover, that he'd be able to use to perhaps find other answers.

 _Are there others?,_ he wondered. _Other people who have also turned into Lucario, or Zoroarks, or other types of Pokemon? What should I do with this information?_

Lance decided that the best course of action would be to simply wait and see what happened. After all, it wasn't as though he really _needed_ those answers. All he cared about was getting through these next few exercises. Then, all he'd have to do would be to get through more days, and, before he knew it, he'd be seeing combat.

"Okay" Mr. Buido announced. "The first thing we're going to do is thirty minutes of treading water. I'm sure that everybody here already knows how to do that, but you also need stamina. When you're out in the jungle, you're going to hurt in places that you never even knew existed. So, thirty minutes is probably about enough to start feeling it. Get in in the deep end".

The deep end of the pool was very deep indeed, twenty feet according to the side of the pool. There were three diving platforms; one that was a meter tall, one that was three meters tall, and one that was ten meters tall.

Lance was a strong swimmer, but there was something about the fact that this pool was so large that intimidated him. Then again, he had to remind himself that he'd been on his father's boat before. He'd been swimming in the open ocean, although he'd been wearing a life jacket then.

The key point was, he could swim. There was no reason to feel intimidated, he reminded himself.

As soon as Mr. Buido said to hop in, he did. And then he started treading water.

It wasn't very difficult; indeed, it was even easier as a Lucario, since Fighting types had great stamina. If he had wanted to, he could even have held a conversation with the others, although there wouldn't have been much to say. Besides, he was pretty sure that Mr. Buido, and military instructors in general, didn't particularly appreciate side conversations.

Lance simply treaded water for the first ten minutes without any problem. After that, his muscles started getting a little tired, but it wasn't too bad. Looking over at the others, they were still focused on keeping their heads above water, just like Lance was. They all seemed to agree with the Lucario boy on that count.

After thirty minutes of treading water, Lance's muscles felt like they were on fire. He was very relieved indeed when Mr. Buido announced that they could stop.

The recruits all swam back to the wall of the pool, where the Buizel had another announcement to make.

"Now that that's over, it's time to practice holding your breath underwater. This isn't an easy task, but it is very necessary on many occasions. You _are_ being trained to be marines in addition to foot soldiers, so I hope that you are able and willing to do so. If not, you won't last too long".

The warning given by Mr. Buido was very chilling indeed, but Lance tried not to think about it. He was already determined that he would learn whatever was taught here as quickly as possible, no matter how stressful and terrifying it might be. That was the only way he was going to survive on the field of combat, so he might as well.

"Fifteen feet below you are buoys tied underwater. Each recruit has a different-colored buoy that they must grab. Most Pokemon have excellent underwater vision, so we don't need masks or any of that jazz".

 _We're not Pokemon, or even beings,_ Lance thought to himself. _In Mr. Buido's eyes, we're just recruits for the Hoenn Army._

That pissed him off to no small degree. He didn't like being thought of as anything other than a person. Pokemon were considered equal to humans in this world; Lucario, for instance, could do anything a human could do, minus avoiding boiling alive during the summer months.

The Buizel rattled off the names of the cadets and which color buoy they would be attempting to release. Lance dunked his eyes underwater, but made sure that his ears stayed above water, so that he would know what color he was supposed to get.

There was one buoy each of orange, purple, green, black, blue, yellow, red, magenta, gold, white, and gray.

"Finally, Lance, you will be aiming for the blue buoy. You got that?"

Realizing that Mr. Buido had been talking to him, Lance nodded to show that he'd understood. After that, the Buizel instructor said, "Ready...set...go!"

Lance dove underwater, and, almost immediately, it was as though he was in completely another world. Going underwater was like entering a portal into a universe in which you could fly, but you couldn't breathe.

The buoys were all tied in a circle, five feet from the bottom of the pool, much like a clock with one number missing. You couldn't miss your particular buoy.

This didn't make the recruits immune from confusion, however. For one, they had to find their buoy with tangles of arms, legs, and bodies all around them. This wasn't an easy task.

At one point, Lance was kicked in the aura-sensing organ on accident. (At least, he _hoped_ it was on accident). The culprit was the Zoroark who wasn't Claire. At first, Lance had thought it _was_ Claire, and had thought, _She's ruthless, isn't she?_

However, that had turned out not to be the case. Lance managed to untie his buoy, although, at this point, everything felt waterlogged. He wanted to give up, but then he remembered that the only way he'd be able to breathe again would be to get back to the surface.

Pushing himself down to the bottom, he was able to kick off, reaching the surface of the water just five seconds later.

He started taking deep breaths as soon as his head broke the surface. He didn't think he'd taken on any water, though, so that was quite fortunate.

He clutched his buoy in his arms, not believing that he'd been able to get it, almost. It had taken quite an effort in order to bring it back to the surface, but he'd done it anyway.

As he tried to catch his breath, he reminded himself that there was still quite a bit left to go before they were going to leave Aquatics. He wasn't out of the woods yet, not at all.

They did a few more exercises in the water, such as practicing dives, something that Lance was far from perfect at. When he'd taken swimming lessons as a child, he'd always had a difficult time with them, and had performed more than a few belly flops in his day.

That said, at least it didn't involve being submerged beneath the surface for an extended period of time. For him, that was immensely valuable and beautiful.

Once Aquatics was over, Lance was instructed to take another short shower. He didn't need to go through the rest of the day smelling like chlorine, he was told. And, honestly, he agreed with that. It certainly wouldn't help endear him to Claire.

 _Oh, get over it,_ he told himself. _You're not with her. You have never been with her. You will never be with her. So put a sock in it._

It was easier said than done, however. Lance couldn't get over the feeling that there was something completely different about Claire, something that, if he got to know her, he would grow to absolutely adore.

 _You've got bigger fish to fry, for Arceus's sake,_ he told himself. _You're going to be seeing combat fairly soon, and don't you forget it! Thoughts like those are only going to be liabilities._

Looking at the orange tattoo on his arm, he saw that lunch was next. He honestly didn't know what to expect. The food was probably going to be pretty lame, though; he didn't expect anything else from this place. He supposed that they were probably trying to prepare them for the time that they would spend in the jungle, where food would be very hard to come by.

 _Man, I hope I can find ways to find food more easily,_ Lance thought. _Otherwise...I don't how long I'm going to make it._

* * *

At lunch, the recruits were all served the same thing. It was a ham-and-cheese sandwich, except that it didn't look fresh at all. It appeared to have been mass-produced, almost, like a copying machine had accepted one sandwich and made five hundred copies of it.

It didn't taste too bad, but it was nothing to write home about.

 _Home._

Lance tried not to let any emotion show, but it was hard. He'd gone off to sleepaway camp before when he was a little younger, but this was different, somehow.

There, his life had not been at risk. If he was going to climb a rock wall at camp, for instance, he was wearing a climbing harness, and, if he fell, he wouldn't fall far.

It wasn't just that, though. There wasn't the same sense of security as there would have been at a summer camp. He didn't feel at home, or safe, here at all, and it was only a matter of time before he broke down, and would be unable to handle it any longer.

Lance tried to distract himself from these thoughts by looking around the hall with his aura. He was focusing very hard, trying to see if there was any sign of anything out of the ordinary.

This time, he wasn't sitting anywhere near Claire. As he looked around the Hub, trying to find her, he noticed that he was surrounded by people who were talking around him.

 _Jerks,_ he thought. _How would THEY feel if I just started having a conversation with the people on the other sides of me? Huh?_

He wasn't going to let them get to him, though. Whatever it took, he was going to stay strong through all of this, no matter if it took absolutely everything he had.

 _Which, you know, it very well might,_ he thought. _I've never done anything like this before. The military is no joke._

Lance focused until he became dizzy from the effort, but he couldn't sense anything out of the ordinary. Whether this was because of the sheer amount of people in the hall, or simply because there _was_ nobody with an unusual aura, he wasn't sure.

Finally, he stopped, so that he didn't end up fainting. He then went back to his ham and cheese sandwich, hoping desperately that nobody else noticed how focused he had been.

Once his sandwich was finished, Lance saw no reason to stick around. He found social interactions physically exhausting, and that wasn't a hyperbole. He literally felt like, if he talked to too many people without resting, he could fall asleep on his feet. Thankfully, you weren't mandated to stay in the Hub during the entire lunch break.

 _Edible plants, huh?,_ he thought, as he looked at the tattoo. _I wish I knew where that was...I guess I could ask Troy again, but I don't think that he particularly wants to talk to me at this point. I could ask someone else...but I don't want to draw attention to the fact that I'm leaving the dining hall early._

In a way, it kind of was a lose-lose situation. Either way, he was going to be embarrassing himself. Either way, things would be far from ideal.

Instead, he decided that he'd just stay in the Hub for a few more minutes. Edible Plants was at 11:30...perhaps he'd stay until 11:26 or so, and then he'd see when people were leaving. Thankfully, there was a clock on the wall, so he could see when that time had been reached.

When that time did come, he followed the tide of people and Pokemon who were leaving the room and heading somewhere only they knew.

In all honesty, he had no idea where Edible Plants was. He wasn't going to ask Troy for this one, since he had no idea where his roommate was in this massive dining hall. Instead, he went over to the closest Pokemon who was not in the middle of a conversation, a Machamp.

"Excuse me?" Lance asked Machamp.

The Machamp turned around and caught Lance's eye. "Aye, you're Lance Grant. Aren't you the new guy?"

The Lucario boy was slightly taken aback, but he wasn't surprised that the Machamp could recognize him. After all, he was able to recognize that Claire had once been a human, so it wasn't that big of a shock that someone else could see the same in him.

"Yeah" he said. "I'm Lance, the new guy".

"What do you want?" the Machamp asked. "My name's Matt, by the way".

"Thanks, Matt. I'm looking for Edible Plants".

Matt smiled. "It's just down a few halls from here. Right, left, then right. It'll start feeling warm eventually; that'll be a sign that you're close to the greenhouses".

Lance started memorizing that information in his head. He had once taken an IQ test with a professional, who had told him that he was in the top thousandth in terms of working memory. He remembered being extremely proud of this, and now he was able to put it to use.

"Thanks, Matt" Lance said again. "I'll see you around".

"No worries, man" the Machamp replied. "In fact, I'm heading there right now. I'll show you the way".

 _Thanks, Arceus,_ Lance thought. He doubted that it was a sign from the big man upstairs, but there was always a possibility. If Arceus deserved credit, he was going to get it from the Lucario boy; he was just so glad that he could now find his way to the appointed place.

Lance followed Matt down the corridors, which were all pretty narrow after a certain point. It was nothing like the high school he'd attended back in Sinnoh; here, they were more like the hallways of his house.

As a result, they were forced to walk in single file. However, this wasn't as bad as one might have thought. Indeed, the upshot of it was that Lance couldn't lose Matt. The Machamp kept glancing behind himself, making sure that the Lucario boy knew where he was going.

 _Maybe I've just made myself a new friend here,_ Lance thought to himself. _Wouldn't that be nice?_

Eventually, they entered what must have been the fourth or fifth corridor off from the Hub, and it became clear that Matt hadn't been lying about the heat.

The air began to grow very warm and muggy, as if they were inside a large bathhouse. Every breath Lance took felt steamy, in a way.

"Here we go" Matt said. "Here's the door".

Lance didn't know how, but he didn't see anyone else entering the door. Perhaps they'd left earlier, knowing that it was a decent distance from the dining hall. The Lucario boy was sure that it had to have taken more than three or four minutes to get here.

 _Oh, joy, I'm late again,_ he realized. _I hope this isn't becoming a pattern._

Matt opened the door, and they found themselves in a dirt tunnel that sloped sharply upwards. So sharply, in fact, that there was a rope on the ground.

"You might need to use that to climb up" Matt explained. "If you don't, it's like a slide; you'd go straight to the bottom again".

"Well, I certainly don't want _that"_ Lance replied, grabbing the rope from the Machamp's hand and stepping onto the wall.

Climbing the wall, as it turned out, was easier said than done. Every so often, Lance would side down a little bit. Holding himself up with the rope was a significant strain on his back.

 _If this is the worst that training contains,_ Lance told himself, _I think I can handle it._

Of course, if he had actually thought that was the case, he was delusional. Training was going to get far, _far_ more painful for him, especially since Lance hadn't been known to use any exercise equipment other than the treadmill in his basement back at home.

Finally, he reached the top, and found that he was in one of the most gorgeous greenhouses that he'd ever set foot in.

From floor to ceiling, there were pots of flowers, as well as various other planets. Grapevines hung from the ceiling, brilliant reddish purple fruits shining in the midday sunlight.

 _Sunlight._ Lance hadn't seen that in a while, and it surprised him that there even _was_ sunlight. The last time he'd been above ground, the sun had been almost completely blocked out by all of the jungle foliage.

The smell was absolutely delicious, if a smell could be described as such. Even though some of the plants were no doubt poisonous, Lance felt the urge to taste some of them.

 _This is a trick,_ he thought. _It has to be._

He decided not to care for the moment, and saw that there was a lecture going on. A Gardevoir was talking to group of young men and women. All but one of them were human; the sole exception was…

 _Claire?_

There was no mistaking the blue ponytail. The Zoroark was standing there, listening to the instructor giving her presentation. She looked much like a very determined student, hanging on to her teacher's every word so that she could get an A on the test.

 _I can't believe this,_ Lance thought. _There must be forty groups or something. And I just so happen to be in two of hers in a row. Is that a coincidence?_

 _Maybe you're just so much in love with her,_ the romantic voice inside his head said.

 _No, shut up,_ said the rational voice. _Don't concern yourself with those things._

"Ah, Lance, we were waiting for you" the Gardevoir instructor said. "In any case, students, let's see...today we will be working on how to identify if a plant is poisonous. All of you have been judged to be at roughly the same skill level in this subject, so this class will not be difficult to teach".

 _Wait a minute,_ Lance wondered. _If we've all been here for different amounts of time, how could we all be at the same skill level? It makes no sense._

He supposed that not everything _needed_ to make sense, but life could be so confusing sometimes that he wanted more answers than it would ever give him. Quite frankly, confusion stressed the Lucario boy out.

And then he remembered something else.

 _Claire...was once a human. I really need to ask her about that when I have the chance._

Now, he was in a room with her. The instructor was going over the lesson. Now seemed to be as good a time as any to broach the subject.

The lesson went on and on, and Lance soon realized that it just wasn't going to happen. Bringing it up simply wasn't feasible right now.

 _I'll have to wait for the perfect moment,_ Lance thought. _Strike when the iron is hot._


	11. Claire's Past, Part 1

**Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out. And sorry that it's so short. I'll be focusing on this story from here on out, until it's done. For now, I can't work on two stories at once; that just doesn't work too well for me.**

 **Enjoy the chapter, and don't forget to review.**

* * *

As it would turn out, there were no good opportunities to pop the question during the lesson.

This wasn't a surprise to Lance; after all, in the schools he'd attended in Sinnoh, he'd always been instructed not to hold side conversations with his fellow students. Even if he hadn't liked that policy, he'd understood why it was implemented.

Now, however, things were completely different. He had important information that he needed to give Claire. Or, at least, he had to ask her about how she'd come to be a Zoroark.

She'd once been a human; there was no doubt about that. Lance still had no idea how that had changed, and he didn't know if it would be a good idea to ask her.

 _Of course it would be,_ part of his mind said. _You need to tell her, it's important. It could be a sign of some new threat from the Skylock Empire. If they're able to infuse your DNA with that of a Lucario or Zoroark, that's something the authorities ought to know about._

Eventually, they were separated into pairs and asked to identify, from a wide selection of plants, the three types that were edible. This was far from an easy task, because Lance hadn't been paying much attention during the lesson. As expected, he deferred to his partner, a human female, for help during that part.

 _I should be paying more attention,_ he thought. _I have to keep reminding myself that my life depends on it._

"Okay" the Gardevoir teaching the lesson said eventually. "You guys can leave now. It's almost one in the afternoon".

 _Finally,_ Lance thought, _they're giving us some time to get to our next lesson. Weaponry, isn't it?_

He looked at his orange tattoo. He hadn't been paying too much attention to it over the last few hours; he'd simply had so many other distractions. He noticed that he'd been right that Weaponry was next.

Another thing he noticed was that he hadn't been hallucinating when he'd seen that it said that Ziplining was on the schedule. Either that, or he was still hallucinating, but, since that had never happened to him before, he saw no reason to believe that it was happening now.

He still didn't know exactly why ziplining was so important, but he also supposed that it was important to have something that would help them decompress after a long day of training. Certainly, he thought it would help _him_ decompress, even though he was slightly afraid of heights.

"Excuse me?" he asked Matt, as he was reaching the bottom of the slope with the rope attached to it.

The Machamp turned around to face the Lucario boy. "Yes?"

"Where's Weaponry? That's what I have next".

Once again, just like he had earlier, Matt gave Lance directions to the room where Weaponry would take place. As it turned out, it was the exact same place as Target Practice, somewhere he had been before.

 _At least I'm not going to completely and totally embarrass myself there,_ he thought. _Everybody's going to be a novice with weapons, at least, I think so._

Lance had never held or fired a weapon of any higher caliber than a bow and arrow. He'd been told by some of his friends back in Sinnoh that they had fired guns before at shooting ranges, and he was supremely jealous of them.

He reached the Weaponry room, and he noticed that it looked very similarly to how it had looked before. The targets were all lined against the wall, and there was a rack of weapons to the side.

Bows, pistols, rifles, AR-15s...whatever one could name, it was there.

General Lucas Whitefur was standing in one corner of the room, taking several steps in different directions. He looked as though he were practicing a changing of the guard ceremony, which he very well could have been.

Realizing that he had a student walking in, Whitefur turned around to see them. "Hello, Lance Grant" he said. "There are going to be more recruits coming, so just take a spot along the wall".

Lance did as he was told; he didn't want to get on General Whitefur's bad side. He had a feeling that that wouldn't end well.

Once the rest of the recruits filed into the room, which included Brad the Blaziken, General Whitefur began giving them instructions.

"I want each of you to take a bow and arrow and attempt to shoot a target that's against the wall. You will each take turns doing so".

Lance went to the wall and grabbed a bow. He'd used such a weapon at summer camp before, but this was something completely different. This bow was definitely heavier than the ones he was used to, as were the arrows that came along with it.

Another thing that made him a little apprehensive was that he really wasn't that good of a shot. Typically, when he fired an arrow, he either hit the target nowhere near the center or completely missed it. He'd only gotten a bull's-eye once or twice.

"All right" Whitefur said. "Lance, Brad, Buck, and Claire, you will be the first to use the range with a bow and arrow. I'll announce when you may begin shooting, as well as when you will be able to pick up your arrows. You may do so only when everyone has used all four of their arrows, for obvous reasons".

The obvious reasons were very obvious indeed to Lance. He looked at his beautiful blue fur, and realized what a shame it would be if any of it was stained red with blood. He definitely didn't want to get shot with an arrow.

Lance looked down the line of recruits about to take their first shots. He saw that Claire was the same Zoroark he was somewhat enamored by. The realization that she'd once been a human only served to make the Lucario boy more interested in her. He wanted to find out her secrets, all of them. What, precisely, had caused her to end up like this?

Buck was evidently a Ponyta. Even though his eyes were completely black, it was clear to tell that they were absolutely vicious. Buck had his eyes trained on the target, and he wasn't messing around. Lance would have hated to be on the receiving end of one of his shots.

As for Brad, he kept looking down at his feet. Something told Lance that the Blaziken wasn't as confident with a bow and arrow as he was.

The Lucario boy took a deep breath. When General Whitefur told them that they could begin shooting, he grabbed an arrow out of its sheath and attached it to the bowstring. Pulling back, he kept his eye trained firmly on the target. He didn't want to miss.

Once he was confident that he had enough distance in his shot, he let go of the string, allowing the arrow to fly.

It didn't fly as far as he had wanted, however. It landed on the ground right before the target, and, although it did bounce upwards, it did not miraculously come to be stuck in the target.

 _That's a shame,_ Lance thought. _But, oh well. I still have three arrows left._

The Lucario boy attached his second arrow. This time, he aimed slightly upwards, knowing that the arrow would ultimately move a little downwards as it soared through the air. It was then that he realized something else.

This was a lot harder in his Lucario form than it would have been as a human. Perhaps it was because he was still getting used to it, but he felt that, as a human, he would have been able to put in the arrows far more easily, and hit the target with more accuracy. Granted, it had also been a while since he'd used a bow, so there was that as well.

Aiming his second arrow, he fired away. It landed in the white circle on the outside of the target. (There were five concentric circles in each target, white, black, blue, red, and yellow, from the outside of the target to the inside).

 _At least I hit the target this time,_ Lance thought. _It could be worse. Much worse._

Looking at Brad, Buck, and Claire, he saw that they were hitting the target far more reliably. They were also faster than him.

 _Am I seriously the worst shot in the group?,_ he thought to himself. _That really sucks, but I suppose that I can live with it. It depends how bad the others are._

He notched his third arrow and let it fly. This time, it landed right in the blue region of the target, roughly halfway between the edge of the target and its center.

 _Sweet,_ he said to himself. _That's an improvement. If I keep up this pattern, I'm going to get a bull's-eye this time. I can taste it._

Indeed he did. As Lance shot his fourth and final arrow at the target, he managed to land it in the central yellow circle. Looking around, he saw that the majority of the other recruits' arrows were in the red zone, just outside the central circle. Only Buck had managed to land one in the center.

"Nice job, guys" General Whitefur said. "You can go collect your arrows now".

All four of the recruits did so. It wouldn't do to wait at all in order to do so, not when there were several other groups of students who were all waiting to have their turn at using the weapons.

Once Lance had gotten all of his arrows back to the starting point, he found himself standing right next to Claire, at the back of the line. He knew that, if he whispered into the Zoroark girl's ear, nobody else would be able to hear him.

 _Is this a risk I'm willing to take?,_ he wondered. _I just don't know. Maybe someone will be able to overhear me talking to her. That's not something I want at all._

Eventually, he decided that it was worth it. He'd been afraid of being overheard pretty much everywhere he'd gone here, but he realized something now.

This was the headquarters of training for the Hoenn Army. There was no place that they could go for privacy, none at all. It wasn't a matter of finding the place with _no_ risk of being overheard; that was impossible.

Instead, it was best to focus on the place with the _least_ risk of being overheard. Right now, with everyone focused on the people who were shooting their arrows, might have been a good time.

"Claire?" Lance asked, tapping the blue-maned Zoroark on the shoulder.

She turned around to face him. "Yes?" she asked.

The Lucario boy knew that he'd have to whisper into her ear. If he didn't whisper, he ran a very high risk of being overheard, something he definitely did not want.

"How did you become a Zoroark?" he asked her quietly, trying not to draw any attention to himself. This was a difficult task.

Claire stared back at Lance sternly. "I was born one" she replied in a tone that made it sound as though she felt very offended. "I'm not aware of any other way one can become a Zoroark".

"But I turned into a Lucario, and I thought that-".

"Nope, I didn't turn into a Zoroark" she whispered loudly. "I was born one. There's a big difference between those things".

Indeed, there was, and Lance felt silly for a moment. But then he realized something.

Claire had to be lying. She _had_ to be, for, if she wasn't, she definitely had some explaining to do. How could she have been a Zoroark her entire life if her aura was telling Lance otherwise?

 _Perhaps aura isn't infallible,_ Lance thought. _I suppose that it makes some sense that it would be that way. Or does it?_

Somehow, he felt that there was something that she wasn't telling him. Little did he know, however, that, at that very moment, Claire was having a flashback to her past.

* * *

 _Claire Morrisey was standing in the kitchen at home, looking around for something to have for breakfast._

Let's see...do I make myself some cereal, or some PB & J? _, she thought. She didn't think about the nutritional facts, just what would taste better on a hot morning like today._

 _Eventually, she got out the peanut butter and jelly, deciding that a sandwich was what she was craving. She quickly got it together, constantly checking the clock, making sure that she'd be at school on time._

 _Because Claire had obtained her driver's license, she drove herself to and from school every day; she didn't need to take the bus. That was something she was glad about; she didn't want to ride the bus like a little kid; she wanted to get herself to school in the more grown-up manner, since she_ was _seventeen years old._

 _Her mother came down to see her. "Morning, Claire" she said._

" _You're up early" the younger woman replied. "But good morning to you as well"._

" _It's going to be a hot day, isn't it?" Claire's mother said. "Make sure you drink plenty of water, because you don't want to be thirsty"._

" _For Arceus's sake, Mom, I'm seventeen, not seven" Claire replied, sounding slightly sarcastic. "I don't need you to constantly baby me"._

 _Mrs. Morrisey raised both of her hands in the air, much like a suspect being apprehended by the police. "Sorry" she said. "I just want to make sure that you're all right today"._

" _I will be, don't worry" Claire replied. "And I won't get into an accident on the highway, I promise"._

 _Claire's mother made her promise that every day. Little did she know, today, she wouldn't be able to keep that promise._

 _Her mother smiled. "Well, I hope that today goes well for you. I'll be home at five, okay?"_

 _Claire nodded. Her mother was often the type to hover around her, making sure that she was doing just about everything right. It could get very annoying, very quickly._

 _After Claire ate her sandwich and left the kitchen, she got into her car and started driving towards her school._

 _At first, it seemed as though nothing was wrong. She was just driving, something she'd done what felt like a million times before. It wasn't as though she had expected anything different to happen this time._

 _Soon, however, she felt a sharp pain in her stomach. Nothing had happened there as far as she knew, but it felt as though she had swallowed a small, spiked ball. That was the level of pain she was in._

I must not lose my focus, _she thought, gripping the wheel even tighter._ I'm driving.

 _She continued focusing on the road, and, eventually, the pain went away. At least, it ceased to matter to her. She could continue driving as though nothing had happened._

 _Eventually, the pain came back with a vengeance. It felt as though she were having a heart attack or something similar, not a good feeling in the least._

It must be a heart attack, _she thought. I ought to pull over, so that I can't hear anyone._

 _She tried to pull over, but it wasn't easy to do so when you were in so much pain. As her car shifted slightly to the left, she overcompensated by a lot._

 _Claire ended up crashing into a tree, and she blacked out almost immediately from the impact._

 _When she woke up, she was still sitting in her seat. The pain had persisted, even though she'd been free of it for a few...seconds? Minutes? Hours? There was no way of knowing how long she had been out._

 _A police officer was shining a light in her face. "Claire Morrisey...that's what your license says. Can you confirm that that is your name?"_

 _Claire's mind was still a little muddled, but she managed to nod. She had a brutal headache, so it wasn't easy to do so at all._

 _The cop took the license away. "You won't be needing this anymore"._


	12. Claire's Past, Part 2

**This is the longest chapter yet of the story, coming out to roughly five thousand words. That's why it took me so long to write. That, and I had a lot of things to do on Saturday, so I had a lot less time to write.**

 **Also, if anyone ever wants to talk to me on Discord, my tag is SkyClubba #5443. I love meeting new people there, so do not hesitate to message me if you want to chat. Because I love chatting about various topics with people.**

 **Anyway, enjoy the chapter, and it would be awesome if you guys would review. I've only gotten twenty so far, and my goal is 100. It would be very awesome to reach the triple digits.**

* * *

 _Claire must have blacked out for some time after that, for she wasn't aware of anything again until she woke up once more in an unfamiliar setting._

 _Opening her eyes, she saw that she was lying on her back in a stiff bed. Looking to the left of her, she saw that an IV had been inserted into her arm, while her head was propped up on pillows. Her legs were covered in bandages, and there was a bandage around her head as well._

 _Speaking of her head, it felt like it had been in the middle of a freezer for a really long time. It was as though it had been inflated beyond the point of anything even approaching comfortable. The headache was worse than that time she had gotten mono._

I must have the flu. Or meningitis. It MUST be meningitis, or else why does my head hurt so much?, _she thought. She realized that she was in a hospital room, that much was clear. She was even wearing a gown, just like the ones that patients wore. She wasn't entirely sure how she'd gotten there, but she could make a pretty decent guess._

 _She supposed that, at some point, an ambulance must have come and picked her up from where she'd been sitting, unconscious, in her car. She didn't remember a thing since then._

Really sucks that I'm in the hospital, _Claire said to herself._ If only there was something to do here.

 _A police officer entered the room. He looked around, wearing a very stern expression on his face. Eventually, his eyes alighted on Claire, and they were full of hatred._

 _Claire didn't know if that hatred was justified or not, but, after she was told what had happened, she would probably understand. She tried to be a very righteous person, always acting in a morally correct way. If she'd been told that she had done something that she wasn't able to remember, she'd be the first to chastise herself for it._

" _Claire Morrisey...do you know what you are charged with?"_

 _Claire's heart skipped a beat. She'd only just woken up in a hospital room, with no idea how she had gotten there. And_ now, _she was being told that she'd been charged with a crime. What on Earth could it possibly have been?_

" _No" the young woman replied. Her voice sounded extremely hoarse, and it felt quite hoarse to her as well. She wondered how long she'd been out for._

 _That was the most honest answer she could give, because, in truth, she had no idea why she was in trouble. She had no recollection of the car accident at all._

" _You veered off the road and into a telephone pole, knocking over power lines. You caused over half a million dollars in property damage by doing so; do you have any idea of how much money that is?"_

 _Claire didn't respond; she didn't know what the police officer expected her to say._

" _Didn't think so" the cop snarled. "Not if you were so willing to wreck a telephone pole like that. Honestly, I would have thought that you'd know better than that"._

 _The cop continued. "You caused all of this property damage. Your driver's license has been revoked; you appear to have been distracted while driving. That is all you need to know for now"._

 _After that, the police officer turned around and left the room, leaving Claire to continue lying there, wondering what, exactly, was going to happen to her._

 _Now that the cop had mentioned it, it was starting to come back to her. She was able to realize that she'd been in an accident, and she remembered crashing into that telephone pole. She also remembered the police officer being there, although she wasn't sure if the one she had just talked to was the same one who had apprehended her at the scene of the accident._

No more license, _she thought, thinking about just how grim a prospect that was. It meant that she'd no longer be able to drive herself, or her friends, anywhere. It meant that she'd have to live with the shame of having had her driver's license revoked._

 _Whatever. She couldn't dwell on it too much; what she had to focus on was the present. Right now, she had a lot of explaining to do with her parents, who would no doubt be coming in within the next few minutes._

 _Her father was the first to enter the hospital room. This surprised Claire, for one simple reason._

 _Claire's father, a lawyer, tended to work late very often. It was rare that he'd be at home around this time. Then again, when his daughter had been hospitalized, it only made sense that he would want to visit her._

 _However, he did not look happy to see her, not in the least. On the contrary, he looked quite angry with his daughter, and Claire knew that she was in for quite the verbal spanking._

 _At first, it appeared as though her father was going to yell at her like crazy. That was what Claire probably would have done in his position; she did not pride herself on being able to control her temper. Then again, she wasn't her father, as evidenced by what happened next._

 _Mr. Morrisey's eyes moved back towards the ground, and he began to look extremely sad. Eventually, he said, "Please explain what happened"._

 _Claire felt as though she might cry. It was bad enough, thinking that her father was going to yell at her. This, however, was far worse; he seemed colder, more calculating, right now._

" _I was driving to school this morning - is it still the same day?" she asked._

 _Mr. Morrisey nodded. "Yes, it is still the same day as the accident. Please continue"._

" _Well, I was driving to school, and my chest started hurting like crazy. I really had no idea what that was all about. I still don't. I wasn't having a heart attack, was I?"_

 _Her father shook his head. "There's still no known explanation for the chest pain. All that can be said is that they did an EKG as soon as you arrived at the hospital. They found nothing"_

" _I swerved over to the side of the road" Claire said. "I didn't want to cause an accident involving another car, you see. One thing led to another, and I ended up crashing into that telephone pole. Do you know how badly I got hurt?"_

 _Right now, Claire's body didn't feel that sore, only her head. She supposed that she was probably being pumped full of some type of pain medication, as that would be the most likely explanation for why she felt somewhat detached from everything._

 _Mr. Morrisey nodded. "They gave you a couple of stitches to close a wound on your head. You also have a concussion, so you're supposed to take it really easy over the next few days. That drip is giving you some pain medication, but they're about to take it out. I hope that your pain is going to be manageable once you are off of it"._

 _Claire nodded. She was hoping the same thing, although she somehow doubted it. Looking up at the IV stand, she noticed that no new bags of pain medication had been hung from it. Clearly, they were going to try and wean her off of it._

" _I'm really hungry" Claire said eventually. "Do you know if they can get me something to eat?"_

 _Her father frowned. "They say that they don't want you eating too much, if at all. You might end up throwing it up, because of the concussion. I know that, when I got a concussion when I was younger, I ended up puking a lot"._

TMI, _Claire thought, but she didn't say it. She was focusing her gaze on her father still, and how mad he looked at her._

 _He appeared stone-faced, so angry that he didn't know how to express it properly without hurting somebody. Claire, even though she didn't want to admit it, was scared of her father in this moment._

He's probably going to ground me for life, _she thought._ After all, I DID wreck his car.

 _It was true; the car that Claire had crashed into that telephone pole had belonged to her father. It was probably completely unusable now, she realized. Her father hadn't noticed at first, since he usually took the subway to work in Jubilife City, but that, of course, hadn't lasted forever._

" _How did you find out? Does Mom know yet?"_

 _Her father nodded. "I called her to tell her all about it. I'd been given a call by the police, and I hadn't believed it at first. After all, you've always had a very good driving record"._

 _If the goal was to make Claire feel ashamed of herself, her father was definitely succeeding at that. Claire was feeling more guilty than she ever had before in her life, and, what was more, she understood what the consequences of her actions could have been. She knew that she could have seriously hurt others._

" _I'll go now" Mr. Morrisey replied. "I need to head back to work; they only gave me an hour off, and I'd been waiting for you to come to"._

Okay, _Claire thought. Really, it wasn't as though she could have done anything about him leaving. She supposed that she did deserve it; it was her own fault that she was in the hospital._

But the pain, _she thought._ The doctor says that they did an EKG on me and found nothing. But is it really nothing?

 _The chest pain had started to return. Nothing was there, but it felt as though her chest were trying to expand in either direction. That wasn't a pleasant sensation in the least._

 _Just then, a nurse came into the room. "Good afternoon, Claire. I'm Nurse Joy, and I'll be your nurse during your stay here. I'm going to take out the IV if that's fine with you"._

 _Claire nodded. She was afraid of needles, and she was glad that it had been put in while she was unconscious; she didn't know what it would have been like if she'd had to get a shot while awake._

 _After the intravenous line had been taken out, and a bandage placed on her arm, the nurse asked her, "Any lingering discomfort that I ought to know about? Because that is what we're here for"._

 _Nurse Joy's demeanor was definitely different from that of either the police officer or her father. Instead of sounding accusatory and angry, the tone of Nurse Joy was far more conciliatory, far more..._ forgiving, _in a way._

Of course, _Claire thought to herself._ She's a NURSE. Of course she'll try to sound forgiving, while still blaming me for everything.

 _Claire did blame herself for the car crash still. No matter which way one sliced it, the fact remained that she had moved it to the side of the road, resulting in the accident._

" _Yes. My chest still hurts" she said._

 _Nurse Joy began looking extremely concerned. "Oh, my. That's more than a little worrisome, I must say, although it's best not to panic. I'll order another EKG done; you just sit there, okay?"_

 _After Claire nodded, Nurse Joy left the room. She sat back in bed for another few minutes, waiting for a doctor to enter the room._

" _Hello. I'm Dr. Walz, and I'm going to be doing your EKG test today. I actually did one earlier, but you were unconscious for it, and did not notice me"._

Uh, yeah, _Claire thought._ I'm pretty sure that that's part of being unconscious.

" _In any case", Dr. Walz replied, "let's get this thing done"._

 _He took a machine next to Claire's bedside and pressed some buttons. After that, he placed a couple of stickers on the girl's chest, arms, and legs._

" _Stay completely still and don't talk" the doctor said._

 _Claire did as she was told, not moving for a good five minutes. Eventually, Dr. Walz said that they were done, and the girl was able to speak again._

" _Do you know how long it will be before the tests are back?" she asked Dr. Walz._

" _It should be pretty soon" the doctor replied. "I suspect that we'll have an answer shortly as to what is troubling you. I'd advise that, until then, you stay calm. It's certainly not going to get any better if you keep freaking yourself out over it"._

" _I suppose so" Claire replied. She wasn't too worried about the possible implications of the chest pain. After all, she worked out often, ate a fairly healthy diet, and didn't smoke. And, most importantly, she was only seventeen years old. She shouldn't be having a heart attack._

Just because something shouldn't be happening, doesn't mean it isn't, _a dark voice in her head replied._

Oh, shut up, _she told the voice._ You're really not helping.

What if I AM helping you?, _the voice said._

 _Soon enough, Dr. Walz came back with the test results. "The EKG came back showing no evidence of any heart problems. It seems that the chest pain was just a spontaneous event, with nothing happening to cause it. It certainly bears some watching, however"._

" _I see" Claire replied. Even though she hadn't been awake in here for very long, she was already getting sick of this hospital room. She couldn't wait to get out of here._

" _Any other questions?" Dr. Walz asked her._

" _Yes" the girl said. "How long will I have to stay in here?"_

 _The doctor took a glance at the clipboard he held in his hands, giving a curt nod. "With the discharge instructions given on this sheet, you can leave in about an hour. You won't have to spend the night here, if that's what you were wondering"._

" _That's good" Claire replied. She'd never spent the night in a hospital before, and she certainly didn't want to start now. Not when she'd have to try and start the process of getting her license back._

" _Indeed it is" Dr. Walz replied. "Just follow the instructions on this sheet, and you should be back to normal in no time"._

* * *

 _Claire was bored out of her mind._

 _She'd been home from the hospital for two days at this point, and she couldn't believe how horrible the post-concussion recovery was._

 _One thing that hadn't fully sunken in for her, when she was being read the discharge instructions, was that she couldn't watch TV or use a computer for a couple of days. Nothing that would strain her brain at all was allowed._

How am I supposed to entertain myself, then?, _Claire wondered. She almost said it aloud, but talking would have caused her aching head to hurt more. Luckily, she hadn't thrown up from the pain, so she was able to eat. That was one thing she was doing a lot of._

 _It wasn't just that she was more bored than usual. She was also more hungry than usual, feeling like she could have eaten a Lucario for breakfast. Claire wasn't sure if there was any causal relationship between it and the car accident, and, quite honestly, she didn't care. All she knew was that she was hungrier than she had ever been._

 _The pain in her chest hadn't completely gone away, either. It still felt like it was trying to stretch out in both directions, not a pleasant feeling at all. And it was a constant feeling; the pressure was almost as bad as the time she'd had pneumonia. Not fun at all._

 _She hadn't gone back to school, either. Even if she hadn't had the concussion, her chest was in too much pain to allow for that. Really, it was just as well, because she couldn't have focused anyway._

 _Her driver's license had been revoked. Starting once she had recovered from her injury, she was going to attend a class to learn how to control her road rage._

 _That in itself enraged her, though. She didn't like to think at all about how much damage she had caused, but, at the same time, the crash had not come as a result of road rage. It had been as a result of feeling like a spike was about to grow out of her chest._

 _She was lying on the couch, listening to an audiobook, when the pain suddenly spiked. Now, it was all over her body._

 _Well, it wasn't necessarily_ pain. _However, there was a prickly sensation all over her body, and she knew that this wasn't normal. The stretching sensation in her chest, however, remained as intense as it had been before._

 _Indeed, it was getting worse. Claire thought of getting up and taking some ibuprofen, but she had her doubts as to whether that was really going to work. It probably wouldn't even take the edge off of her pain, because this wasn't even really_ pain.

" _Mom?" she called. Normally, she wasn't one to ask for her mother, even when she was in a lot of pain. After all, she was seventeen, much too old for that. However, she was in so much pain at this point, and worrying so much about what this all meant, that she felt she had no choice._

 _Her mother came rushing into the living room. "What's wrong, Claire?"_

" _My chest is really hurting" her daughter replied. "I really don't know what's going on here, but it can't be anything good._

 _Mrs. Morrisey frowned. "They did an EKG test at the hospital, and they found nothing. You don't feel sick, do you?"_

" _No" Claire said. "It just hurts"._

" _I'll call Dr. Roberts, get you in for a blood test or two" her mother replied. "I'm sure that it can't hurt to have a little more information"._

" _I suppose not" Claire replied, although she was a little skeptical as to whether or not it was necessary._

 _Mrs. Morrisey went and grabbed a nearby phone. She then walked into another room, far enough away so that Claire couldn't hear her._

 _The young woman sat on the couch until her mother came back. She was beside herself with worry the whole time. Still convinced that something was very wrong, she wanted her mother to hurry up and book the appointment._

 _Eventually, Mrs. Morrisey returned. "He says to come in right now to his office in downtown Jubilife City. I'll drive you; you're in no condition to be driving yourself at the moment"._

No shit, Sherlock, _Claire thought in response. Honestly, who would have thought that she'd be driving herself to the doctor with the concussion and the chest pain?_

 _Both women walked to the car, and then her mother drove her to Dr. Roberts's practice. The drive passed without much incident, even though the chest pain was getting worse and worse._

 _Once they arrived in the waiting room, Claire was feeling very annoyed indeed. She'd gotten a check-up every year, and, each time, the same thing had happened. She'd been told to arrive at a certain time, but, as it turned out, she would have to wait for someone else to be done with their appointment. Why couldn't they have just asked her to come later?_

 _She supposed that doctors could also have problems with scheduling, but that didn't mean she had to be happy about it. Quite the opposite, in fact._

" _Claire Morrisey?" asked the nurse at the desk eventually._

 _The young woman with that name stood up. "Yes?" she replied._

" _Dr. Roberts will see you now"._

 _After walking to her primary care physician's suite, Claire sat down in a chair and waited for Dr. Roberts to arrive. When he finally did arrive, she felt reassured that they would get to the bottom of what was causing her problems._

 _Dr. Roberts was a short, skinny man with glasses and very little hair. In spite of this, he had a smile that was quite infectious; it could make someone else feel good as well. However, that spell typically did not work on Claire Morrisey._

" _What's wrong today?" the doctor asked Claire._

" _I have a prickly sensation over my entire body" the young woman replied. "Not only that, but there's a lot of chest pain as well"._

" _I see" Dr. Roberts said. "Well, we have a couple of options for that. The first option is to just do nothing and see what happens. There are benefits and risks to that option"._

" _And those are?" Claire replied._

" _Well, the benefit is that you wouldn't have to have any testing done. The risk, of course, is that it might be something serious, in which case you'd need to come back in if the pain continued. For your sake, I really would like to get to the bottom of this this visit, and not have to deal with it again"._

My thoughts exactly!

" _The other options are another EKG, or a blood test. I'll be honest with you; I'm not sure what we would be looking for in there, but, if it's a sign indicative of a serious problem, it's definitely something that I'd want to get to the bottom of"._

" _Well", said Claire, "I would like to know what's causing all of this"._

" _And so would I" Dr. Roberts replied. "Us doctors have quite the commitment to truth, as I'm sure you have realized by now"._

 _The young woman smiled. Dr. Roberts than said, "I think that I'll order both an EKG and a blood test done. It's always better to be safe than sorry"._

I suppose it is, _Claire thought._

" _For that test, you will have to be admitted. You can go and collect your hospital bracelet from the desk in the waiting room; they'll know what is going on"._

" _Okay" the young woman replied. She exited Dr. Roberts's office and went back to the waiting room, where her mother was still waiting._

" _Any news?" Mrs. Morrisey asked._

" _We're going to have to do an EKG" Claire replied. She wasn't too excited for another heart examination, but she_ was _excited to figure out exactly what was causing her chest pain. She wanted all of this confusion to be over as soon as it possibly could be, because she was sick of it._

 _Dr. Roberts came back out and told them to go to the cardiac lab in the hospital just across the street. He would place a call to the technicians there, so that they would know that Claire and her mother were coming._

" _I didn't realize the problem was going to be this hard to figure out" Claire said. She tried not to sound like she was complaining, but, on the inside, she was quite annoyed. How hard should it have been to diagnose a problem, especially with today's amazing testing equipment?_

" _Yeah, well...sometimes things just happen like that" her mother replied._

 _Claire didn't know what to say in response to that, but, luckily, they were almost to the doors of the children's hospital, where the EKG was going to be done. Claire didn't really know if she qualified as a child anymore; she certainly didn't think so._

 _They had a small amount of difficulty finding the cardiac lab, but it wasn't that bad. It was near the intensive care unit, which did make her a little worried._

 _She wasn't afraid of hospitals, necessarily, but she was afraid of the various reasons why a person might need to go to a hospital. Being near the unit where the sickest patients were, the closest ones to death...that didn't sit well with her._

I'm glad I'm not one of them, _she thought to herself._ Or am I?

 _She didn't like to think about just what the problem might be, but, if it was something serious, she was sure that it would be diagnosed quickly and treated easily. The medical teams at the hospitals in Jubilife City were considered some of the best in Sinnoh, let alone the world._

You have nothing to fear, _she kept telling herself. It was hard to believe, but it was true._

 _Eventually, she was given a hospital bracelet and taken into the room where the test would be done. She had her hopes that she'd show no evidence of a problem this time, because, if she did...well, it wouldn't be pleasant._

I really hope I don't have to stay overnight, _she thought._ That would really mess up my life.

 _Then again, she was already recovering from a concussion, so it wasn't as though she'd have anything to do at home either._

" _Claire Morrisey?" asked the woman at the desk._

 _Claire stood up and followed the woman into the testing room. Along the way, she passed several rooms that might have had patients there. She felt very bad for them._ Once I get back to work, _she thought,_ I should give some of my paycheck to this hospital. _That was certainly going to be a noble cause._

 _She sat down in the chair, and, once more, those stickers were attached to various parts of her body. It felt a little cold, but not too bad. Once the sheet had been printed out, and she was able to talk again, she asked what the potential problems she might have had were._

" _There's really no way to know, Claire" the technician replied. "But, believe me, whatever it is will be treatable. No matter what, things are going to work out"._

 _The young woman nodded. Soon enough, another doctor in a white lab coat entered the room._

" _The test results came back" he said. "There's nothing wrong with her heart"._

 _The technician looked at Claire. "I don't know what's causing the pain, but it doesn't seem to be a heart problem. Does that reassure you at all?"_

 _At first, Claire was surprised to find herself shaking her head. She hadn't thought that she would be worried to not have any problems showing up on her EKG, but she was nonetheless._

 _She walked out of the room and back to the waiting room. "No heart problems" she told her mother._

 _Mrs. Morrisey appeared to perk up a little at that. "Claire! That's excellent news!"_

" _Yep" the technician replied. Looking at Claire, she said, "You're going to be all right. Your heart is perfectly healthy"._

" _That's a relief" the young woman replied, even though she didn't mean it. She hoped that the doctors present believed that she believed that._

" _Yes, it is indeed" the technician said. "You may leave now"._

 _Later, when Claire was in the car with her mother, and they were driving back from the hospital, her mother said, "I'm very glad that you are all right. I can't imagine how stressful that must have been for you"._

" _Yeah" Claire replied. "It was pretty worrying, but no problems were detected. And that feels good. Really good"._

" _Great, I like that" her mother said. "But you have to tell me if you're still having chest pain, okay? Because that's not a good sign, ever"._

 _Her daughter nodded, even though she saw that her mother, currently driving through the middle of Jubilife City, wasn't paying that much attention._

 _Even though she wasn't going to tell her mother that, Claire was still worried even now. She had a feeling that the hunch she had, the hunch that something more was wrong with her, was more than just a hunch. That there was a problem that hadn't been detected on her EKG, because it was a problem that_ couldn't _be detected on an EKG._

 _Little did she know, she would turn out to be more correct than she had ever realized._

* * *

 **I've decided to do a question and answer, because that's something that a lot of authors have done on their stories. I've done it before myself, and I'd love to get back into it. So I am going to get back into it.**

 **Question: Where are you from?**

 **Please answer the question in your review, and I'll post my own answer in the next chapter of the story.**


	13. Claire's Past, Part 3

**This is probably the shortest chapter yet, or at least one of them. In my defense, it was a good place to end the chapter. You'll see why by the end.**

 **Can I acknowledge that I'm almost at 2,000 views for this story? You guys are awesome!**

* * *

 _Three days._

 _That was how much time had passed since Claire had had the last EKG test, which had turned up negative._

 _During that time, she kept wondering exactly what was going on with her. She recovered from her concussion, a time period that passed agonizingly slowly for her, or at least seemed to._

 _It wasn't just that she was in pain, or bored. She was constantly anxious about the other symptoms that she was experiencing._

 _The chest pain just wasn't going away. Moreover, she was a lot hungrier than usual, and would often make twice as much eggs and bacon for breakfast as usual. Claire normally wasn't a big eater, so this definitely raised some eyebrows among her parents._

" _Wow, Claire, you're eating a lot lately" her father said. "Do you care to tell us what's going on? This doesn't seem to be like you, normally"._

" _I'm perfectly fine" she would reply. "Just a little hungrier than usual"._

 _She knew that increased hunger and thirst were possible symptoms of type 1 diabetes, and that thought scared her more than she wanted to admit. However, she didn't want to go to the doctor and have more testing done; quite frankly, she was sick of those tests._

 _Besides, she wasn't experiencing any other symptoms of the disease, so she figured that it probably wasn't that. Perhaps she was just hitting a late growth spurt, although that also seemed unlikely to her; according to Dr. Roberts, she was already at her adult height of 5 feet, 9 inches. So it probably wasn't that._

 _That left a wide variety of explanations, each as confusing and terrifying as the last. Really, it was better not to think about them._

 _One day, Claire was sitting on her couch at home when the pain in her chest reached a critical mass. Nothing was there, but it felt as though an elephant were inside her, trying to stretch out her chest._

 _Grimacing, Claire tried to stand up. She failed; a wave of pain pushed her back onto the couch, but now in a position of lying down. It was simply too great for her to stand up, the way things were._

What the heck just happened? What the hell is going on?

 _Soon, parts of her body felt fairly prickly. Again, nothing seemed to be there, but it felt as though she were becoming a porcupine. Tiny spikes must have been growing out of her skin or something._

 _The pain in her chest was changing. It was now more of a pressure than a pain; it was clear to tell that her chest was trying to expand._

Okay, I'm officially weirded out for today, _she thought. Things couldn't possibly get any stranger than this, could they?_

 _Soon, she felt an excruciating pain in her fingers. She watched as they started turning red and..._ morphing together?

 _Claire realized now that her fingers were becoming claws. She didn't know what to think; nothing like this had ever happened to anyone she'd known before._

 _In addition, she felt her hair extending. Her hair, as it was, wasn't particularly long for a female. However, it was now becoming a large ponytail in the back; at least, that was what it felt like._

 _Her chest expanded in both directions. Now, there were spiky tufts of fur on both sides of it._

 _She suspected what had happened, but she decided to head towards the mirror. After all, that was the only way that she'd be able to find out what had happened for sure. She did have a pretty good idea what it was, though._

 _Claire walked into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Exactly what she had thought was the case had come to pass._

 _She was a Zoroark. There was only one difference, in terms of how she looked visually, from a normal Zoroark, and that was the color of her ponytail._

 _In most Zoroarks, the ponytail was a crimson red color, bordering on maroon. However, hers was a bright blue, the color of the sky on a clear summer day._

 _Claire had no idea what to think. This had never happened before, at least not that she was aware of. Also, when her family had once taken a trip to a Zoroark sanctuary, she'd seen plenty of them with crimson ponytails, but none with ponytails of any other color._

What is the meaning of that?, _she wondered._

 _Just then, the door to the house opened, and Claire's father walked in. He had just gotten off from his work, and had come home rather than going to play hockey with some of his colleagues._

 _He looked at his daughter threateningly. "You have come into our house?"_

 _Claire raised both of her claws. "I'm your daughter! Claire! I mean no harm!"_

" _Like hell you don't!" Mr. Morrisey yelled in the harshest voice Claire had ever heard him use. He went over to the utensil drawer and pulled out something._

 _His daughter's heart stopped. He had grabbed a_ knife, _and was aiming it directly at her heart. The man was a complete novice at knife throwing, and had indeed never used them as a weapon. In general, he was a pacifist, and Claire had never known him to attack another person, ever._

" _Seriously, Dad! It's Claire!" she yelled, almost as loud as her father had yelled. That didn't stop Mr. Morrisey from throwing the knife; the Zoroark girl was only just able to get out of the way._

" _I don't believe you" her father replied. "If you really were my daughter, you wouldn't be in a Zoroark form. People don't just change into Pokemon like that"._

Uh, yeah, sometimes they do, clearly, _Claire thought bitterly. She didn't like the idea any more than her father did, but it was better to believe an inconvenient truth than a reassuring lie._

" _This is getting crazy" Claire said. "I'm your daughter. You know I am. It's absolutely ridiculous of you to attack me like that"._

" _For the last time, you are NOT my daughter!" yelled Mr. Morrisey. "My daughter's not a Zoroark!"_

 _Claire didn't know what to say in response to that. However, knowing that her father was very dangerous indeed when he was suspicious of something or someone, she decided that it wasn't worth it to stick around any longer. It just wouldn't be worth it to risk getting hurt, because she knew that her father wasn't going to back down._

It's not going to work out after all, _she thought bitterly._ Just know that it was due to your own inability to accept me for who I am, or even to believe me when I tell you the truth.

 _She didn't have time to pack anything. It was of utmost importance that she leave as quickly as possible, and, unfortunately, that meant that she couldn't bring anything with her._

But that's okay, _she thought._ I'm going to get food somehow. If I have to dig out of trash cans, then so be it. If my father's not going to accept the truth, I have no other choice.

* * *

Claire had been lost in her reverie for so long that she hadn't realized that General Whitefur was calling her name.

"Claire Morrisey!"

"Yeah?" the Zoroark girl replied, snapping out of it. She then realized that it was her turn to use the bow and arrow again; everyone else had done it now, and she was back up to the plate, so to speak.

"It's your turn" General Whitefur said.

"Oh. I guess it is" Claire replied, walking back up to the bow and arrow. Once again, she was with Brad, Buck, and Lance, all of whom now had their eyes trained on the targets.

"You may begin firing now" the general announced. Claire set up her weapon once again and continued firing at the target.

This was what everyone kept doing until it was announced that the lesson was over. Claire looked at her schedule. She had First Aid next.

She noticed that Lance seemed to be looking at her. The Lucario boy had, as long as she had known him, been seeming to be paying a lot of attention to her. Claire was a little annoyed by that, but, at the same time…

 _He is kind of hot,_ she told herself. _Not too sure if he's completely my type, though. But we'll see._

Lance turned to Claire. "What do you have at three?"

"First Aid" the Zoroark girl replied. "Yourself?"

"Ziplining".

Now that Claire was able to see Lance's expression a little more closely, it was clear to tell that the Lucario boy was a combination of nervous and excited. That wasn't surprising; it was pretty much exactly the same way she had felt before the first time she'd gone ziplining with her family.

"You'll enjoy it" Claire told Lance. "It's extremely fun".

"I can imagine" he replied. "I've been on one at summer camp, but that one was only about forty feet tall. Kind of a sorry excuse for a zipline if you ask me".

Claire chuckled. "I can imagine that this one is going to be nothing like that. And I really do think you'll love it. Like I said, it's one of the most exciting things that I have ever done".

After that, Claire walked out of the room, presumably to head to First Aid. Lance had no idea where that was, so he was glad that he didn't have it today. Tomorrow, however, he could be in a world of hurt if he had to go there and still didn't know where it was.

"Ziplining is right here" General Whitefur said. "The instructor will be here in about five minutes, so just sit tight and relax. He'll take you into the locker room once it's time".

Lance tried to slow his rate of breathing. He was feeling a high amount of anxiety over what he was going to do later. _Or soon,_ he thought to himself. _I'm going to be going ziplining quite soon._

Brad and Buck remained in the room. Those were the only others Lance recognized, besides…

"Troy?" he asked. Even though most Lucario looked very similar to one another, it was clear to see that this one was his roommate.

The other Lucario nodded. "Yes, it is me" he said. "And I've got ziplining as well".

Lance was still having a hard time believing that he hadn't been hallucinating when he'd seen that this was one of the lessons. What was there to learn about how to zipline? Or was this just something fun they were going to do together, in order to build camaraderie?

Just then, a young man Lance could assume was the instructor entered the room. He was broad-shouldered, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a slight beard.

"Hello" the man said to General Whitefur. "I'm here to take them to the course".

"Yes, Domenick" said the white-furred Lucario. Turning to the line of recruits, General Whitefur told them, "This is Domenick Yerger, and he's the zipline instructor here at the Hoenn Army base. He's actually one of the two guides, and the other one should be coming in soon".

Right on cue, another young man entered. This man was a lot smaller than Domenick, and he also appeared to be much older, perhaps in his early fifties. He was bald, with round glasses, and appeared vaguely Asian.

"My name's Chai" said the man. "And I love all living creatures. Which is why I am a ziplining instructor; it seems as though the most alive people will ever be is when they are sliding down a cable a hundred and fifty feet in the air".

Chai gave a wide smile, showing off his teeth. He looked very happy indeed, and this smile was quite contagious. Even just looking at it, Lance could tell that a lot of other people were smiling in response. It was very hard not to smile when you saw someone else as full of life as Chai.

 _If Domenick and Chai are as happy as ziplining instructors usually are,_ Lance thought to himself, _that might be a good career option for me._

But then he remembered why he was here. It wasn't to go ziplining, or to have a good time at all. Indeed, very few things that he did at this Hoenn Army base, or around it, would be able to be described as _fun._

Still, though, for now, he would have a respite from being worried. He'd have a respite from all of the harsh instruction, all of the constant reminders of death. Everything could just be forgotten, easily.

 _Ziplining, here we come._


	14. Dauntless

**We're now at over 50,000 words in this story, and we achieved it in fourteen chapters.**

 **Speaking of "we", if you guys would review and show your support for this story and what I am doing, that would be amazing. Every little bit helps!**

 **In any case, enjoy Chapter 14 of Poke Wars, Episode I!**

* * *

"Here we are" Chai said. He'd led them into what looked like some sort of locker room, where various climbing equipment had been placed.

In front of each recruit, whether it was a person or Pokemon, a full-body harness had been set on the ground, along with a helmet. "Just in case you accidentally crash into anything, although, let me assure you, that is highly unlikely" Domenick told them.

Lance started to put his harness on. He was the first one to ask for help with doing so, and, as he was receiving help from Domenick in order to don the harness, he couldn't help but notice that Claire seemed to be looking at him with an expression of amusement. For whatever reason, she'd decided to watch as the others suited up, probably risking being punished if she was late to her next lesson.

Lance immediately thought that she was looking at him in a manner that indicated she found him childish.

 _She doesn't really think about me that way, does she, though?,_ Lance wondered. _I mean, I've got kind of a crush on her, but I don't know if my feelings are reciprocated...oh, this is so painful!_

Indeed it was. One of the most agonizing feelings that one could imagine would be to love someone, and not know if they loved you back. But there was one significant step that Lance had made.

He had admitted to himself that he had those feelings. How long would it take until he was able to admit to Claire that he had those feelings?

 _Hopefully not very long,_ he told himself. _I just have to work up the courage to do it._

Of course, actually doing so could turn out to be much easier said than done. For his own sake, Lance hoped that the process could be as painless as possible. He didn't think that he'd be able to hold the truth in forever.

And why would he _want_ to? If he became good friends with Claire, and never admitted his feelings for her, to her, it would feel as though their friendship had been based on a lie from the very beginning. That would not feel good at all.

After Domenick had helped Lance put on his harness, the Lucario boy turned to Brad. "Are you excited for this?"

The Blaziken nodded. "You bet I am".

Buck the Ponyta also looked extremely enthusiastic. Lance's legs, however, were shaking. He'd never done anything this extreme; he was nervous, but also very excited as well.

Once everybody had gotten all of their straps in order, Chai said, "Okay, guys. Now that you are all suited up, let's get in the van. It'll take us up to the course, and I think you'll have a great time there".

The recruits were led out of the room and through several hallways. Eventually, it began to seem as though it would never end.

 _How big is this place?_ , Lance wondered. _There must be well over a hundred of these hallways, maybe even two hundred! This is CRAZY._

Eventually, the hallways gave way to one of those dirt tunnels. There was a ladder attached to the wall here, leading up to a hole in the ground twenty feet above.

"I hope you guys aren't afraid of heights" Domenick said. "You do have to climb this ladder, but, for many people, since they're not roped in for this, this is the scariest part of the whole trip.

Lance wasn't afraid of ladders; the zipline he'd been on at summer camp had required him to climb a ladder that had been attached to a tree, and then several metallic rungs that had been hammered in. That had been quite scary for him, but, thankfully, he had been harnessed in for that.

Once they had all made it to the top of the ladder, Lance was almost immediately hit with a blast of heat.

It was about three in the afternoon, perhaps a few minutes after that time. That meant that it was the hottest part of the day, or at least close to it. It must have been in the nineties, perhaps even a hundred degrees outside.

"All right" Chai said. "It's about ten minutes towards the first line. Unfortunately, once you get in the van, we will have to black out the windows, so that you cannot see where you are going".

"Why are you blacking out the windows?" Buck asked. His voice was relatively high-pitched, which made Lance wonder how old the Ponyta was. Certainly, he sounded fairly naive, if it really was that he didn't understand the reasoning behind that precaution.

Domenick, who normally had a fairly lighthearted expression on his face, looked at Buck with a severe expression. "It is a precaution. If you are caught by the enemy, you know that the Skylock Empire is going to do whatever it takes to torture our location out of you. We don't want that".

"Whatever it takes" Buck echoed. "Just like that Imagine Dragonites song".

"Indeed" Domenick replied. "In any case, guys, get in the van. We'll black out the windows as soon as everybody is situated in their seats".

The recruits did as they were told. It wouldn't do to disobey Domenick; while he normally did seem relatively easy-going, it was clear that you didn't want to get on his bad side. If you did, you would live to regret it.

 _Or, worse, not live to regret it,_ Lance thought. _Maybe you'll die and regret it in the afterlife._

It was then that Lance realized just how morbid that thought was, and he wished that he could have taken it back. Unfortunately, when you had thoughts like that, there were no backsies, to borrow a phrase. You'd just have to deal with them.

The van was large and white. As soon as everyone got in, Chai pulled a lever that must have been located on the outside of the van somewhere, and a large black curtain fell down in front of each window.

"Don't mess with the curtain" Chai said sternly. "Trust me, you will regret it if you do so".

Lance decided not to ask what would happen. He didn't really want to know, but the Asian man was making it obvious that it wouldn't be anything good.

The drive lasted roughly ten minutes, just like Chai had said. The Asian man periodically looked backwards to make sure that everyone was behaving, but Domenick, who was the one driving, did not do so, for obvious reasons.

During that time, nobody spoke to anyone else. They hadn't been specifically told to stay quiet, but everybody did anyway. For exactly what reason that was, Lance had no idea, but he thought it would be somewhat amusing to do so.

As the van kept moving, Lance could sense that they were progressing uphill at a slow rate. Of course, this wasn't surprising; they were heading to the top of a zipline, and it would require some degree of downward slope in order to really work.

"All right, guys" Domenick eventually said. "We're here".

Chai chuckled. "Were you guys all asleep or something? I didn't hear anyone say a word!"

Lance couldn't help but laugh in response, even though he didn't find that particularly funny. His legs were shaking; he couldn't believe that this was about to happen.

"Yes" Domenick said. "You may get out of the van now".

The recruits filed, one by one, out of the van. Once Lance had climbed out, right behind Brad and Buck, he was able to see where they were.

They were at the top of a large hill, overlooking a large forested valley. Of course, it wasn't _forest_ in the traditional sense; it was a very dense jungle, with steam rising from within. The air was still very hot and thick with moisture, exactly the type of weather Lance hated.

 _Well, I'm sure we'll feel a nice breeze once we're actually on the ziplines,_ he thought, silently praying to Arceus that that would indeed be the case.

"Here we are" Domenick said, leading the line of recruits to a gate on the edge of the road. "We're at the start of the course. There are six lines here, the highest of which is about a hundred and fifty feet above the river in the middle of the course. So, as ziplines go, it's really not that high".

 _That's pretty high for me._

"Follow Chai down the boardwalk; he'll lead you guys into the first line".

The Asian man raised a hand, beckoning for the others to follow him, which they did. Chai began walking towards the end of the wooden walkway that was behind the gate. He then pointed to a small gate that was placed at the edge of the boardwalk.

"Okay" the Asian man said, facing the entire group. "I'm going to zip across first, so that I will be able to catch all of you at the end. Domenick will hook each of you into the cable, and you'll each walk down the steps. Step off, and you'll go zipping down".

The very thought of it caused Lance a small degree of anxiety. "Can I go second?" he asked Chai. "After someone else?"

"Sure" the instructor replied. "Is this your first time ziplining?"

The Lucario boy nodded gingerly. He was a little embarrassed to admit it.

"Well, it's nothing to be afraid of" Chai replied. "Our equipment is absolutely top-of-the-line. You're not going to fall and die, so you can get that ridiculous thought out of your head. The lines don't snap".

 _Well, that's a relief,_ thought Lance sarcastically. _Because I was totally thinking about that._

In reality, that hadn't been his greatest anxiety; it more had to do with his general fear of heights, combined with the fact that he'd be soaring through the air at a very high speed. It was certainly nerve-wracking for him.

"Just watch me do it first" the Asian man said.

From behind Brad, Domenick cleared his throat. "All right, everybody. In the order in which you will go on the zipline, please line up behind Chai. Like he said, you'll be attached to the cable. It's never snapped before; if it did, this course would not be operating anymore".

Chai attached himself into the rope and zipped down, spreading his arms as though they were wings.

Lance reminded himself of what Domenick had just said. As stated above, the cable snapping was not his chief concern; however, knowing that that wasn't going to happen was definitely a major relief for him. He would not want to plummet into the creek a hundred and fifty feet below.

Lance stepped up to the plate, so to speak. Okay, he was really stepping up to where the zipline began.

The Lucario boy watched as the carabiner attached to his harness was clipped into the cable and fastened very tightly. Chai had already gone down the line, and the Asian man had appeared to enjoy it a lot. _Hopefully I do as well,_ Lance thought.

After Domenick said something into his walkie-talkie, he turned his attention to Lance. "Chai says that it's all clear on the other end. You walk down those steps and then step off; it'll be really fun, I promise".

Domenick pressed a button, opening a small gate. Lance walked down the steps, feeling the harness he was wearing tugging on the cable. It was getting harder and harder for him to stand up straight; he was going to need to step off.

Lance shoved himself forward and down the line.

Almost immediately, all of his nervousness vanished, to be replaced by the most pure feeling of euphoria he had ever experienced. Yes, he might have been in the middle of a very high-stress situation back at headquarters, preparing to fight alongside the Hoenn Army, but he was thoroughly enjoying himself right now.

As he soared through the trees, he looked down at the river, probably a good sixty or seventy feet below him. From here, it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, even if it was quite muddy in nature.

 **YEAH, BABY!**

There was the sound of the carabiner sliding down the cable, which drowned out Lance's thoughts. That was all right, though, because, the way things were going, Lance was incapable of having very many coherent thoughts at all.

The feeling of pure euphoria, one he had rarely ever experienced before in his life, was filling him with joy. He wished that this ride could have lasted forever, because he had a feeling that he would never tire of it.

All too soon, he ended up on the other side of the zipline. It was quite a shame that it had to be over, but he supposed that all good things had to come to an end eventually. Chai was there to help him down.

"That...was...awesome!" Lance exclaimed, not exaggerating at all. It was one of the most exciting things he had ever done, and he was very glad that he had signed up for the Hoenn Army now.

 _You'll probably be singing a different tune once you're actually in the middle of combat,_ he told himself. _Remember, it's not all about ziplining and eating together and having camaraderie. You're going to be in some truly dangerous situations._

Of course, his own mind was always the greatest spoilsport of them all. It _had_ to get in the way of him enjoying pretty much anything.

"Glad you thought so" Chai replied, unhooking Lance from the cable. "There are five more left; they only get higher from here on out, so consider that one a warm-up".

Lance felt as though he was ready for anything now. He'd had a mild fear of heights, but he never felt as though he had truly conquered it until now. Now, he felt that he had taken a key step towards that goal.

Another recruit came zipping towards them. This one appeared to be a human, roughly twenty years old, who was fairly tall. He had dark brown hair, although it was hard to tell from this distance. It became easier to make out details about him as he got closer and closer to reaching Lance and Chai.

"Dan!" Chai exclaimed. "I hope you enjoyed your first run".

"Yeah" the young man evidently named Dan replied. "I've been ziplining before, up in the jungles near Petalburg City. That was a lot higher than this; hundreds of feet high".

"Yeah" the Asian man replied. "If you can overcome your fear of heights, you can get over a lot of fears, we have found. That's why we have ziplining as part of our curriculum".

"I see" Lance replied. He didn't even want to know what other fears they would try to have him overcome while he was here. If he had to reveal a lot of embarrassing secrets...yeah, that would be bad. Because he had a _lot_ of embarrassing secrets.

Soon enough, Buck came zipping down the line, followed soon after by Brad. The Ponyta and Blaziken both appeared to have enjoyed it just as much as Lance and Dan had.

Troy was the last one, among the group of what Lance counted to be eight. _So there are eight people ziplining,_ he thought, _in addition to the two instructors._ He tucked that irrelevant bit of information into the back of his head.

Finally, Domenick zipped to the other side of the river. Once he was there, he looked at the recruits happily. "You guys enjoyed that ride, didn't you?"

Lance wasted absolutely no time in smiling back. "I sure did" he said in response, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible. This wasn't difficult, because he didn't have to fake it at all. All he had to do was show himself the way he really was.

Chai led them up a series of steps to where the next line was. It was probably about thirty feet higher than the last one, putting it roughly thirty meters above the river. As Lance looked up at it, however, he no longer felt fear. Rather, he was very excited.

If the event was intended to form camaraderie with the other recruits, it was working. Ever since Lance had arrived at the academy yesterday (was it really only _yesterday?_ ), he hadn't really felt connected to the others. After all, he didn't have lessons with very many of the same people.

Now, however, doing something as thrilling as ziplining with the others...that was pretty special.

They scaled the steps leading up to the second zipline, and Lance's legs were still shaking. However, they were no longer shaking from fear. Now, they were shaking from joy.

* * *

The ziplines just kept coming, each one seeming to be longer than the last. Of course, Lance didn't mind that; if anything, it made him more and more enthused. He wished that this amazing adventure could have never ended.

After the second cable, he went aside with Domenick. "Will I be able to write letters home to my family, so that they know how amazing of a time I had?"

"Yes, you can" the guide replied. "That's allowed at headquarters. The only thing that's not allowed is e-mail, or any form of accessing the Internet. The reason for that is…".

"You don't want us to be tracked" Lance replied. "Yeah, I get that".

Domenick nodded. "Trust me, I wish it wasn't that way. But we just have to stay safe. While at the base, your safety is our priority".

That was such a cliche statement. _Your safety is our priority._ It seemed that every airline Lance had ever flown on had said that; indeed, when they'd been suiting up to go ziplining, either Domenick or Chai had said that at one point. Lance couldn't remember which of them it had been.

Every time the carabiner attached to Lance's harness was clipped into the zipline, he became more and more excited. He couldn't wait to tell everybody else about how awesome it had been.

Decades from now, when he was an elderly grandfather, talking to his grandchildren about his younger years, he could envision what he'd be saying.

 _Except...who would the grandmother be? Claire?_ That was the rational side of his brain talking, acknowledging the fact that Lance had never had a proper girlfriend during the time that he had been living in Sinnoh. That was definitely a fear that he would need to get over; namely, his fear of asking a girl out. His fear of rejection, too, was a problem.

 _Maybe not, but a guy can dream, right?_

That had been the emotional, excitable part of his brain, now. Lance had no idea which side he should have been listening to, but, at the moment, he tried not to let himself care.

 _Right now, I'm ziplining,_ he told himself. _I'm not puzzling out all of this romantic jazz. I'm fucking enjoying myself right now, and that's what matters!_

Over the next two hours, he chatted with Brad some. The Blaziken had been ziplining before, and he was able to give the Lucario boy some tips.

"Try going upside down, Lance" Brad told him. "It's more fun that way".

"No thanks" the Lucario boy replied. "I like seeing the world as it is, rather than how you think it ought to be".

Luckily, the Blaziken didn't seem too offended by that, which relieved Lance a great deal. If he had been offended by that, that wouldn't have made Lance happy at all. He was one to feel guilty very easily, and this was definitely a scenario in which he'd feel that way.

"It's your loss" Brad said in response, shrugging.

Lance would have been scared, had he been going upside down, that he would accidentally detach the harness from the zipline and fall a hundred feet to the river below. That might not have been too valid of a concern, but that didn't mean that it was easy to rid himself of it.

As they kept on going through the canopy, Lance was more and more amazed by the beauty of the jungle. As the shadows started appearing over the valley, darkening the foliage below, as well as the forest floor, the oppressive heat began to die down a little.

"The farther south you go in the Northern Hemisphere", Domenick said eventually, "the earlier the sun sets during the summer. It's the opposite in the winter. I'm sure that you guys all learned that in school, and now you're seeing that in action".

Now that Lance noticed it, the sun did seem to be a little lower in the sky than it would have been up in Sinnoh at this time of day. It still wouldn't be completely dark for several hours, but it was definitely a neat effect on the canopy.

Periodically, during the time that they would be on the walkways, Chai or Domenick would tell them about the various types of foliage they were passing. His explanations were always brief, something that the entire group was grateful for. They wouldn't have wanted their amazing time to be interrupted too much by environmental lessons.

All too soon, they arrived at the sixth zipline, which they had been told was the last one.

"There's really not a whole lot to say about this one" Domenick said. "It goes down the hill, and it's the highest and longest. The tower at the end is where you'll land, and then you'll all walk down the steps and back to the van. And we'll drive back to headquarters, just like earlier".

The recruits all nodded, showing that they had understood. Lance didn't like the prospect of one particular part of the ride, however.

On the way up here, the windows had been blacked out, reason being so that the information as to where they were couldn't be tortured out of them. Now, however, Lance was feeling in love with the jungle, almost. He could have convinced himself that he was just in Hoenn to go ziplining with a group of humans and Pokemon, who would soon live in harmony with each other.

But that, unfortunately, was not the case. As soon as he got back to headquarters, he'd be saddled with lessons once more. Not only that, but he'd be forced to deal with Claire once more, and continue to face his feelings for her.

 _I'll cross that bridge once I come to it,_ he told himself. _Right now, I'm free of those feelings. At least, brain, I'd like to believe that._

And worse still, he'd be in this same jungle soon, except this time he'd be wielding a gun and trying to kill and get away from enemy soldiers. It wasn't going to be all sunshine and rainbows from here on out.

 _For now, I'm ziplining,_ he told himself.

"Lance?" the voice of Domenick said.

The Lucario boy realized that he'd been standing at the front of the line for a good fifteen seconds now. It was his turn to get on the sixth and final zipline, back to the bottom of the hill, and back to where the van was. He'd been holding up the group.

"Coming" Lance replied, walking over to the edge, where Domenick was waiting to hook his carabiner into the cable.

"Enjoy the ride, it's your last one" the instructor said as he attached Lance into the zipline. "A hundred and fifty feet above the creek".

By this point, Lance was pretty much over the fear. It really did help, going on all of those cables previously.

Now, he was no longer afraid. And that meant the world to him.

As he took those first steps off the platform, he thought, _Am I softening up? Should I be scared?_

His thoughts were soon interrupted, however, by the sound of the carabiner sliding down the cable, as well as the sense of euphoria returning. He was addicted to this thrill.

His last ride, however, was not his most enjoyable. Reason being, the addiction to the thrill of ziplining was troubling him.

Just seconds ago, he had asked himself if he should have been scared. He was just now realizing something important.

 _They're trying to desensitize me to all the danger. They're trying to desensitize all of us._

 _I won't let them._

But then the other, more pessimistic, side of his brain told him something far worse.

 _It's working._

* * *

 **Answer (sorry for not putting this on the last chapter): I live in the region of New England, in the northeastern corner of the United States. It's quite nice here, although today is rather hot for May.**

 **Question: Have you ever been ziplining?**

 **I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you guys soon for the next one!**


	15. The Letter

**Here's Chapter 15. I wrote the last 30% or so of this on my commute back from school, so there is that. I'd like to thank everybody; we just reached 15 favorites!**

 **In other news, if you want to talk to me on Discord, my code is SkyClubba #5443. There is a lot to talk about, that is for sure.**

 **I hope you enjoy this chapter, and don't forget to review and let me know what you think.**

* * *

Lance hadn't wanted to ruin his last zipline ride by dwelling on the fact that they were trying to soften him up, in a way.

 _Or are they softening me up?,_ he wondered. _No, they must be trying to harden me. So that I don't feel any fear. So that I just become a ruthless killing machine._

 _That's not right._

All of these thoughts came to Lance as he was sitting on air, forty or fifty yards above a river. He was on a general downward slope, however, and he could tell that he was losing altitude.

Soon enough, the end was in sight. There was a large tower, probably five or six stories tall, with a net in front.

 _I'm about to crash into that net!,_ Lance realized with a start. He started bracing himself for the impact, which wouldn't be pleasant. He could imagine trying to untangle himself from said net while still trying not to slip out of his harness. That wouldn't be fun.

At what felt like the last second, the net fell down, and Lance passed through where it had once been.

"Did you like the addition of the net?" Chai asked him.

"Why is it there?" Lance asked, somewhat angrily, as the Asian man helped him get down from the cable.

"We like to fake the recruits out" Chai replied, smiling. "Make them think they're going to hit the net, when in reality we drop it at the last second to allow them through. I think it's quite funny".

 _I don't,_ Lance thought, although he didn't say that out loud. Even with how mad he was at Chai for faking him out, he decided that it'd be better not to anger the older man.

"The others are on the steps" Chai said. "At least, those who have already gone down the final zipline. Once everyone's at the bottom, we'll head down to the van together".

As Lance started walking down the steps and towards the others, the dark realization had gone away, to be replaced with complete and total ecstasy.

He'd done it. He'd gotten over his fear of heights, and done it in such a fun way. That in itself was extremely satisfying.

He walked over to where Brad was. "How did you like that, Lance?" the Blaziken asked him.

The Lucario boy smiled. "That sure was fun".

Brad nodded. "I know. Listen, when you get back, you should write a letter to your family back at home. I'm sure that they'll want to know all about it".

Now it was Lance's turn to nod. "I'm going to do exactly that" he replied. "Believe me, I want them to know about it as well".

Eventually, everybody else made it to the bottom of the final cable. Once he was at the bottom, Domenick addressed the group.

"It seems that all of you enjoyed this outing. That's good, because we're going to have plenty more like them. As those of you who have been here for a while will know, we do a lot of community-building exercises. It's important that you guys see one another as family".

Lance was sure that it wasn't meant in a negative sense. However, he couldn't help but feel, once again, that they were trying to brainwash him.

 _They want me to see them all as family. Isn't that the stereotypical military mindset? More proof, as if it were even needed, that they're trying to brainwash us._

The group all went back down the tower and to the ground, where they followed the trail that led back to the white van. Getting inside, Lance was disappointed, but not surprised, when the windows were blacked out once again.

 _Of course,_ he thought. _What else should I have expected?_

The ride back to the base passed in silence.

* * *

By the time Lance met Claire for dinner, he had the largest smile on his face that he was sure he'd ever worn in his life.

"How was it?" the Zoroark asked. "You look like you really had a good time".

The Lucario boy nodded, still smiling. "I sure as hell did. That was a really fun trip, and one that I hope we do again. If there is another opportunity, that is".

Claire nodded. "I mean, I've been ziplining in Hoenn before" she said. "I've never done it with a group of others from the same military academy; I've only done it with my family and a wide assortment of strangers".

 _Oh, so THAT type of zipline tour,_ Lance thought. He'd seen the episode of _South Pokepark_ in which the children had gone ziplining, and it had been portrayed as extremely boring. Granted, if it had really been as the show had made it seem, it would have been quite boring indeed.

Thankfully, it wasn't anything _like_ the show had portrayed it to be. So there was that.

"I remember being so scared of heights the first one I went on" Claire said. Whispering into Lance's ear, she said, "I almost wet my pants, I was that scared".

 _I almost wet my pants._

 _Pants._

"Wow" Lance replied. "That would have been bad". He was only focused on one word that Claire had said, however, not the whole sentence. And there was a reason for that.

The Zoroark nodded. "Do you want to eat together?"

"Why not?" the Lucario boy replied. "Let's do it".

As Lance and Claire found a pair of seats next to each other, Lance couldn't help but think of something that the Zoroark had said.

 _She said she was wearing pants...if so, that's a big slip-up for her. She shouldn't have said that if she wants me to keep believing that she has always been a Zoroark._

Pokemon beyond a certain age did not wear clothes. Knowing that you had to be a certain age to ride a zipline...that was quite damning, a mistake that Lance would not have expected Claire to make. From what he'd seen of her, the Zoroark girl had been pretty smart.

One thing was for certain: If Lance hadn't been convinced before that Claire had once been a human, he certainly was now. She'd just made a ridiculous mistake that had tipped him off.

They sat down at a table, where a small chicken pot pie had been set in front of each of them. It looked pretty decent, although there was no denying that they had been mass-produced. It was completely transparent that they were more focused on trying to feed everybody than making sure that the food was actually good.

 _Ah, well,_ Lance thought. _It doesn't really matter, does it? We're getting something to eat, and, besides, I'm still high on adrenaline._

It was true. The Lucario boy, ever since he had gotten back on the van, hadn't been able to stop smiling. When you did something as exciting as ziplining, the thrill never left you; it stayed with you, and you were determined to experience it again.

 _Can't wait until the next time we do something fun like that._

Lance dug into his chicken pot pie. It was pretty good, but not great, which was pretty much exactly what he had been expecting. He finished it quickly and then looked at the temporary tattoo on his arm.

It said that, at six in the evening, announcements were going to be held. He had no idea what would be discussed in said announcements, but he did know one thing: He was quite curious indeed.

"Where are announcements?" he asked Troy, noticing that his roommate was right next to him.

The other Lucario turned towards Lance. "It's in the auditorium".

That was fairly unhelpful, and Lance continued staring at Troy until the latter cleared his throat. "Ah, yes, sorry. Let me be more specific".

He gave the Lucario boy a list of directions towards the auditorium. "But, really, dinner's about to end, and everybody will be heading there anyway. It's not like it'll be that hard to find".

Lance smiled. This was going to be a little easier than he had expected.

Soon enough, just like Troy had said, dinner appeared to be over. All five hundred or so recruits in the Hub had finished their meals, and were now getting up and walking towards the door on the other side of the dining hall.

The Lucario boy followed the group. Really, it was as though he had found himself in a river of people. It was that difficult to move against it, and, really, why would he have wanted to do it, and risk getting trampled?

Once he reached the auditorium, he was amazed by what he saw.

The area looked much like one of the enormous theaters that he'd visited in Pastoria City. Seats had been set up so as to fit everybody there, and there was a stage at the front of it.

Soon enough, a white-furred Lucario made his way to the podium that had been placed on the stage.

 _Is that General Whitefur?,_ he wondered.

Sure enough, it appeared to be. If he was able to tell which Lucario was which even when they were all the same color, it stood to reason that he'd be able to name the Lucario of a _different_ color.

"I'm Lucas Whitefur", the man at the podium said, "and I'd like to remind everyone why they are here. This reminder is given every evening, but it's as important as ever tonight. The reason is because there are some updates as to what has happened".

Lance nudged Claire. "Is he going to say the same thing every night? If so, isn't this all a waste of time?"

The Zoroark girl shrugged. "Remember, I'm new here too. How am I supposed to know the answer to that question?"

The Lucario boy put that back into his mind file of Claire. She had also only just arrived here yesterday. Which was something Lance should have remembered, given that he'd been on the hovercraft with her on the flight from Sinnoh to Hoenn.

"You are all here for one of two reasons. Some of you enlisted in this war voluntarily, while some of you drafted. All of you share one thing in common, however: You were all brought here because you care deeply about your place of origin, and you would not have it overrun by the Skylock Empire".

General Whitefur spoke very slowly, in a droning tone of voice, and Lance became convinced that he'd end up falling asleep. He made an agreement with Claire that, should he fall asleep during the speech, she would not poke him awake, and let him keep on sleeping through the rest of the speech.

"Make no mistake, the Skylock Empire represents an existential threat to our way of life. Many of you have given up a lot to come here. Some have not given up as much. Either way, you are going to gain meaning through the experience of fighting for the Hoenn Army. It will make all of us better people".

 _I guess maybe "people" is just a catch-all term for humans and Pokemon,_ Lance thought. At least that realization kept him awake...but was that such a good thing.

 _Yes, it is,_ he reminded himself. _What General Whitefur's saying could be very important. I don't want to miss it if that is the case._

"While at this base, all of you have taken part in various exercises in order to help build trust with one another. These are very important exercises because, without them, there is no guarantee whatsoever that we would have a significant amount of trust in one another to beat back the threat posed by the Skylock Empire".

Lance wasn't paying attention throughout most of the rest of the speech. Truth be told, he didn't particularly care what General Whitefur was saying.

All he did know was that most of it was in a feel-good tone. Not a tone of voice, but words that were meant to make the listeners feel that everything was going to be okay.

 _Are these more attempts to brainwash us?,_ Lance wondered. _I'll certainly try to keep track of those, because I certainly don't want to be brainwashed. That would be bad._

 _Or maybe it wouldn't be so bad,_ part of his mind told him. _That way, you'd be able to handle anything that was thrown at you, without fear or reservation. Isn't that part of being in the military?_

 _That's not fair,_ he told himself. _I didn't sign up for things like that. I didn't sign up to be a mindless puppet of the Hoenn Army!_

Eventually, he did focus a little more on the speech, after Claire did prod him. Lance didn't really care that the Zoroark girl was breaking her side of the deal at this point; he knew that the speech was probably coming to an end soon, and didn't want to be sitting in this chair for a second longer than he had to.

"Through your fighting alongside us, each of you will experience a greater meaning in your lives than any of you could ever have imagined. Beyond that, however, I do have an announcement".

Lance's ears perked up at that. His aura could sense that General Whitefur was very excited indeed to be making this announcement; he'd been looking forward to this for a while.

"What is going on?" the Lucario boy whispered into Claire's ear.

The Zoroark girl shrugged. "Let's see what he says".

"We are pleased to announce that the Jungle Queen has made a deal with us. Her palace is fifteen miles north of here, and she's offering five thousand more troops to help beat back the invasion".

 _Five thousand?_ , Lance wondered. _That's not a small number!_

"Indeed", Whitefur continued, as though he had been reading Lance's mind, "that is a very large number. In exchange for the sum of $33,550,336 for her empire deep in the jungle, that is".

 _That's almost seven thousand dollars per person,_ the Lucario boy thought, doing the math in his head. _So that's the price tag they put on a human life? Six thousand, seven hundred dollars or so?_

"At least, that is the sum that she has proposed. We would obviously like to pay her as little as possible; we need money to continue funding all of our activities. However, that will require negotiations. That's where you guys come in".

Claire elbowed Lance in the side, gently. "He wants us to be diplomats? Even though we are completely untrained in that?"

The Lucario boy shrugged. He didn't think that he was very skilled at diplomacy at all, mainly because he'd never tried it. Until now, he'd never had any real reason to.

"Yes, diplomacy is what will happen. And here's how it's going to work. Each of you will earn a given amount of points over the next two weeks. The five with the most points are going to be sent to her palace, in two weeks' time, to negotiate with her".

Lance's heart started beating at a rapid pace. He very much wanted to earn points, assuming that they were like house points from the _Harry Pidgey_ books. That said, the idea of being forced to negotiate with this Jungle Queen scared him to pieces.

 _Well, it's not as though I'm trained in that,_ he thought. _But I'm going to try and do it anyway. I owe it to my family._

When he thought of the word _family,_ the thought of his parents and Michaela had pretty much left his mind. At this point, they were pretty much nonfactors in his decision-making process.

Instead, he was thinking of the hundreds of other recruits, most of whom he had never met. He knew very few of their names. And yet, based on this speech, he felt as though he was willing to risk his life for them.

 _This is quite the camaraderie,_ he thought.

* * *

At 7:00 PM, the recruits were dismissed to go back to their quarters. After all of the navigation he'd been forced to do today, one would have thought that it would be easy for Lance to find the place in which he had slept the previous night.

One might have thought that, but they would have been wrong.

Lance was, in fact, more confused than ever when it came to where he'd be staying. On no fewer than half a dozen occasions, he went down the wrong hallway and had to double back around.

Now, however, he'd found the room. As he was sitting on his bed, an idea suddenly came to him.

 _I should write a letter to home,_ he decided. There were mechanical pencils and paper provided in each dormitory room, placed there for just this purpose. He had what he needed.

Lance went and grabbed those materials. Propping the paper against the bedside table, he began to write.

 _Mom, Dad, Michaela,_

 _It's your son, Lance. At the time of writing this, I have been at the Hoenn Army base for roughly twenty-four hours. It's been quite a time, and my day was rather interesting. Let me go over the ways._

 _First, I had target practice. I didn't know how to use aura yet, but a very kind man named JP taught me. It was very helpful, and I can now use Aura Spheres. I'm sure that'll be helpful when…_

He crossed that last sentence out, then realized that he could simply erase it. He didn't want to include any reference to any sort of combat in the letter, because he didn't want to stress his family out. He wanted it to have the opposite effect, if anything.

 _I'm sure that'll be helpful in the future,_ he wrote instead. It had the same meaning, but it conveyed a different message. At least, he hoped it would.

 _Next, I had Aquatics. Basically a bunch of swimming exercises. It was nothing like swimming lessons at summer camp, and very tiring. But I'm getting through them, just the same._

 _There were several other activities, but the best one was what we did from three to five in the afternoon. Me and several other recruits went to a local zipline course, and we got to go on it! It was a very good time indeed._

Lance smiled. If he told them about ziplining, and how much he had enjoyed it, his family would be more likely to believe that everything else was going well. He didn't want to make them worry.

 _I'm really enjoying my time here, for the most part. I have a roommate, another Lucario named Troy. He's been really helpful so far, which I'm glad is the case. I've still needed some help getting around the place, but I'm sure I'll be better at it tomorrow. Hopefully my muscles don't ache too much._

Lance remembered a fitness class he'd been to when he was younger, which had involved plenty of weightlifting, as well as other activities. Not only had it left him completely and totally drained afterwards, but, the following day, he'd still been sore.

 _I can only imagine what it'll be like after a week of this. Or two weeks. Or a month…_

He shivered at the thought of being here for a whole month. He was liking it in general, but he didn't particularly like the idea of spending most of the month underground.

 _In any case, I hope all is well with Michaela. I love you guys, and I can't wait to hear back from you._

 _Much love, Lance._

The Lucario boy read over the letter five times, just making sure that it looked decent and didn't have any mistakes in it. He wasn't too controlling grammar-wise, generally, but he didn't like it when people misspelled words or forgot to put in punctuation marks. That just reeked of laziness, and, even though Lance could be fairly lazy himself, he didn't like lazy people.

 _Perhaps I am a bit of a hypocrite in that sense,_ the Lucario boy thought to himself. _Oh, well. One thing is for sure; if I am to survive at this place, I can't be lazy much longer!_

"Where do I go to mail this letter?" he asked Troy. The other Lucario had been sitting on his bed as well, writing a letter to his family.

"There's a mailing room just off of the Hub" Troy replied. "Look for your surname's position in the alphabet. That's the order in which the boxes are set up".

"Thanks, Troy" Lance said.

The other Lucario looked at him with a smile. "It's no problem, dude".

 _We really are like one big happy family,_ Lance thought.

He left the room and looked for the dining hall once again. This wasn't an easy task, because he had forgotten once more where it was. He hadn't bothered to pay much attention on his last trip from there to his room, and he was paying the price for it now.

Every time he passed by a clock, he got more anxious. It was getting closer and closer to nine, and he knew that that was his curfew. If he was caught out late...he didn't even want to think about it. He _had_ to get back on time.

At last, he found the mailing room. It was a small room with stacks of colored paper and a printer, printing out who knew what.

He glanced at the clock. It said that it was 8:52 PM.

 _I've got to find my mailbox and get back to my room in eight minutes,_ he thought with a sense of urgency. _Or else I'll probably be made to do about a billion push-ups._

In his human form, Lance hadn't even been able to do _one_ push-up. He just wasn't in good enough shape for it, and he supposed that his body had not been built that way. Now that he was a Lucario, of course, he was no longer sure about that.

 _I'd still rather not have to do extra push-ups,_ he decided. _So I've got to make this quick._

Lance located the G section with little trouble. After slipping his letter inside, he realized something.

 _They didn't provide us with envelopes. Are they screening all the letters going in or out?_

He sincerely hoped that was not the case. If so, that meant that he would need to be extremely careful about what he sent out, and his family would have to be careful about what they sent to him.

 _That really sucks._

Lance knew that he didn't have much time to dwell on it, though. He needed desperately to get back to his room before they found him out here.

He frantically tried to remember where the room was. He couldn't afford to make any mistakes.

By some miracle of Arceus, he didn't. He made it to his room in the nick of time, jumping onto his bed.

He realized that he hadn't showered in two days; he hadn't showered yesterday, and he hadn't done so today. It was probably a little late for that, too; Troy had gotten underneath his covers and was clearly trying to sleep. The lights had been turned off.

 _Oh, well. When I'm in the jungle for days at a time, I'm not going to be able to shower then either. So I might as well get used to it while I still can._

After breathing a sigh of relief that the day was over, he crawled underneath the covers himself and hoped that sleep would come.

* * *

 **Answer: I have been ziplining before, on a recent family reunion in Whistler, British Columbia. Seriously, if you ever find yourself there during the wintertime, try the Ziptrek Twilight Tour. It was some of the most fun I've ever had in my life, and, if you do it, you will NOT be disappointed.**

 **Question: What is your favorite band or musical artist?**

 **Please leave your answers in your review. I can't wait to see what songs you think I should listen to.**

 **Until then, this has been SnowLucario.**


	16. Field Medicine

**This is a shorter chapter, but it took longer than usual to get out. I'd like to apologize for that; I had a busy weekend, and I couldn't get in as much writing as I wanted. However, I'm going to get back on the grind soon. I want these chapters out as much as you guys do.**

 **In other news, tomorrow is primary day in three key Senate races: Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia. I won't be writing as much that evening, because I'll be watching to see who takes on Joe Donnelly and Joe Manchin for Senate (Yes, I'm a political enthusiast).**

 **Enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

Somehow, Lance managed to avoid having any dreams his second night. Perhaps he had simply been so tired, when he got into bed, that he hadn't even bothered to dream. Or maybe there was some other explanation.

Whatever the case, when he woke up, he was feeling pretty good. Unlike some days when he woke up, this time he was completely awake from the moment he had opened his eyes.

 _All right. Here's Day 2. Hopefully it's just as good as Day 1 was._

Yesterday, he decided, had been a good day. He'd had quite a good time ziplining, as well as getting to know a few of the other recruits. He could only hope that the good times would last.

Troy was already awake. "Morning, Lance" he said, sitting up in bed and stretching, careful not to scratch anything with the spikes on the backs of his paws.

"Morning, Troy" Lance replied. "I'm looking forward to today".

The other Lucario looked at Lance with an expression that looked like a cross between confusion and contempt.

 _But Troy doesn't hate me,_ our hero thought to himself. _Why is he looking at me this way?_

"What's wrong?" Lance asked Troy.

"I'll tell you what's wrong" the other Lucario replied. "It's that you think today's going to be a good day. That you think every day here, probably, is going to be good".

It was now Lance's turn to look confused. "What do you mean?"

"Open up your eyes, Lance. See the world from where I stand. I've been here for two months, and, let me tell you, they go easy on you for the first week or so. Once that week is done, believe me, you're going to wish you weren't here. They start pushing you a lot harder. I've had to do a lot of exercises at altitude before".

"Really?" Lance asked.

"Yep. For instance, the mountains to the north. We've had to run five kilometers, carrying packs, at an elevation of seven thousand feet. It's not fun at all, trust me. Boy, you're going to regret that you ever came here".

Troy's words chilled Lance to the bone. It had never dawned on him, yesterday evening, that training would get so difficult. He'd thought that this was as bad as it was going to get.

Of course, not _every_ day could be as simple and carefree as one in which they had gotten to do fairly light activities and then go ziplining in the afternoon. Lance knew that, the sooner he took that to heart, the easier his time here would be.

 _Boy, you're going to regret that you ever came here._

Troy's demeanor had changed markedly. At first, he'd been very kind and somewhat playful, very much wanting to have a good time with Lance, to make the most of the hand they had been dealt. Or, more accurately, dealt themselves.

Now, things were different. Now, Troy did not appear to be happy at all. The more Lance thought about it, the more convinced he became of that.

 _He must have been faking it this whole time,_ the Lucario boy thought to himself. _I can't count on him for help any more._

Indeed, he couldn't. At a certain point, Lance was going to have to get better at finding his way around the underground maze. If he didn't, he knew that the results were not going to be good.

Lance exited the dormitory and headed down to the Hub. Somehow, he found it with ease this time. Perhaps his brain had had as much as it could take of confusion, and had decided to be useful, for once.

He found where Claire was sitting, staring at her scrambled eggs. He noticed that the Zoroark girl hadn't even taken a single bite.

 _Is she nervous about something?,_ Lance wondered. _Why would she be? She knows that I mean her no harm._

Or did she? Lance didn't know _anything_ about Claire's past. Well, except for the fact that she had once been a human. That, he knew with absolute certainty, or as close to absolute certainty as one could have been reasonably expected to get.

 _I don't even know what to think anymore._

That seemed to be a common refrain for him lately. He'd admit to himself that he didn't know very much at all, and was very confused about his current lot in life. He'd been that way before he'd come here, but, ever since he'd signed that form in the Sheriff's Tower, that confusion had only gotten worse.

 _Do I ask Claire out? Do I not ask Claire out? Where would I even ask her out_ to? _It's not like there are a ton of fancy restaurants in the jungles of Hoenn!_

"Is anything wrong?" Lance asked Claire, against his own better judgment. Literally every piece of his mind had been screaming at him not to talk to the Zoroark girl, because he didn't want to irk her further. It was very plain to see that something was bothering her, he just didn't know what.

 _And I don't know if I'll ever know,_ he thought sadly. _Not unless she decides to reveal it to me. But why would she do that if she doesn't trust me?_

Lance turned to his own plate of scrambled eggs. Eggs were far from his favorite food; he only liked them when they were used in baking; at least they could then be used for something more delicious.

That said, he knew that he had no other option here. When you were going to be in the army, it was very important not to be a picky eater. You never knew when you might find food again once you were out in the jungle.

The Lucario boy felt a chill run down his spine once more. Somehow, last night, he'd escaped nightmares. How much longer, he wondered, would that remain the case?

He knew his number would be up eventually, the only question was when. He couldn't keep on getting lucky in that regard forever.

Claire hadn't answered, and Lance started to realize that she never would. Clearly, whatever it was that was bothering her, it was bothering her to such a degree that she didn't want to talk about it. Lance had eventually had to convince himself that, if he really cared about Claire, he'd drop the subject. So he did.

Lance finished his plate of eggs quickly. After that was done, he lined up for the daily schedule, just the same way as he had yesterday.

Luckily, today, since he had eaten at such a fast pace, trying to get the eggs over with, he'd made it to the front of the line quickly. This time, the machine said that his left paw would be tattooed with ink in the color #F4CA32.

As Lance's brain worked overtime, trying to figure out what color that was, the stamp came down, and he was able to see that it was a golden yellow. However, the color didn't matter, so much as what was written in that color.

It was his schedule for the day, and the Lucario boy scrutinized it carefully.

 _0800 - Field Medicine_

 _0930 - Target Practice_

 _1100 - Lunch_

 _1130 - Weaponry_

 _1330 - Hunting_

 _1600 - Aquatics_

 _1730 - Dinner_

 _1800 - Announcements_

 _1900 - Back to Quarters_

 _2100 - Lights Out_

 _Okay,_ he thought, _I have Field Medicine first. I think that that's going to prove highly useful on the battlefield, if I can pick it up correctly. Of course, I will, because I'll have to. Then there's more Target Practice, so I want to get my Aura Sphere skills up to date...I gotta thank JP for that…_

As soon as he'd seen that schedule on the back of his left paw, his mind had begun racing a mile a minute. He saw an interesting activity in the afternoon that made him a little confused at first, but then he realized something else.

 _Hunting for Pokemon is going to be just like hunting for members of the Skylock Empire,_ he realized. _If I can get my shit together, I'm going to be able to deal with it._

Of course, he was still a little squeamish about the idea of killing another human being or Pokemon. It wasn't the blood and guts involved; that, he'd be okay with.

 _It's the fact that I'd be killing another living being!_

 _Coward. That's what you signed up for, you idiot. You'd better do it, Lance, if you want to survive._

 _I am better than that. I must be better than that._

 _No, you're not. If you have to do it, you're going to do it at some point. Why not now?_

Lance sighed. Looking backwards, he realized that he'd been holding up the line for the last minute, staring intently at the tattoo.

 _Another idiotic thing,_ he thought. _Obsession with the tattoo. Welcome to your life, Lance Grant._

Walking back into the dining hall, Lance scratched his head. He had no idea where Field Medicine was, and he wasn't particularly keen on asking somebody else. He wanted to find that place on his own, because to ask another person would just be embarrassing. It would go against his new goal, to be independent here.

It didn't take long for his resolve to crumble. It wasn't long before he realized that, if he was going to get around here, he was going to have to ask someone else new for each new lesson he had. And it wasn't going to be easy to swallow his pride.

In addition to everything else Lance Grant was, he was also arrogant. He never liked to admit that he needed help on anything, and always wanted to appear like he was on top of everything. This could, of course, have severely negative consequences, consequences that Lance didn't even want to think about right now.

He went over and asked directions to Field Medicine. Once he was told where to go, it wasn't that difficult to find. His navigational skills had certainly improved.

 _Of course, I'll need those navigational skills in the future,_ he thought. _If I'm going to be able to survive in the jungle._

Thinking of the phrase "in the jungle" made him flash back to the nightmare he had had only the night before last, in which he was fighting in the jungle.

 _And that will be my reality soon. I wonder when my first combat mission is going to be. Do I even want to know, or would it be better if it was a surprise?_

He did reach the place where Field Medicine was. As it turned out, it was in what appeared to be some kind of indoor courtyard. Of course, they were still underground, so Lance had to remind himself that the sky painted overhead was fake.

 _Why did they even paint that sky overhead?,_ Lance wondered. _It's not like this is some kind of kindergarten play!_

"Hello, class" said a voice.

Lance turned around to see that there were seven other students standing around the instructor. They were all various types of Pokemon, including a Flareon and Glaceon. However, it was the instructor that caught his eye.

The instructor was a Chansey. Lance had rarely seen them, ever, in his life. For the most part, they could only be found in medical facilities, and, since Lance had not, as far as he could remember, ever stayed in a hospital, he hadn't had much experience with them.

"Hello" said the Chansey. "My name is Dr. Maisie, and I'm the instructor for Field Medicine here at the academy. Since we only have a finite amount of time here, allow me to introduce the subject to all of you. Let's get right into it".

Lance didn't have a problem with that. When he had to stand or sit in one place for a long time and listen to a lecture, he tended to zone out, thinking more about things he himself was interested in. Subjects such as medicine could bore him quite quickly.

 _And they SHOULDN'T BORE ME. I need them to survive. I signed up for this, so I signed up for ALL of this. I had better get a grip._

"The first thing you need to know", Dr. Maisie said, "is that this topic is vitally important. Everybody who is fighting in the jungle is going to need to know plenty of first aid, as well as which plants have medicinal properties. This isn't magic, it's medicine. There is a very big difference".

A Ponyta raised his hoof. Lance noticed that it was Buck, the same one he'd been ziplining with yesterday.

"Yes, Buck?" the Chansey asked.

"You are saying that there is magic here?" the Ponyta asked. "Because I'm sure not familiar with magic".

"There's no evidence that magic exists in any form" Dr. Maisie replied in a stern tone of voice. "Buck, I am going to take ten diplomacy points away from you".

Lance guessed that diplomacy points were the measure used to determine who was fit for the negotiations with the Jungle Queen and who wasn't. That was, to him, the only way in which it made even a lick of sense.

 _I guess Buck just proved his stupidity,_ the Lucario boy thought smugly. _What would make them think that he was going to be successful?_

Lance, of course, was pretty sure that magic was just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo that was completely irrelevant in the present day, and had never existed in the first place. He wanted to laugh at all the people in the past who had believed in it, but he knew that would get him nowhere.

"All right" Dr. Maisie said. "Today, we are going to talk about how to clean and bandage a wound. This is the most basic of medical skills, and, as cliche as that sounds, it is literally _that_ important. Now, let's see…

 _Is she going to wound us first?,_ Lance wondered. _Then we'll have to bandage ourselves up? Is that what we'll have to do?_

"I suppose that you'll have to learn how to tolerate pain first, then" the Chansey said. "Because you will each be given a small knife. Your goal is to create a small wound. Not one that would cause you to bleed to death, but one that could be closed easily. If absolutely necessary, it might require stitches, in which case you can head to the hospital wing".

Lance wasn't in the mood to go to the hospital wing, so he decided that he'd cut his fir as lightly as possible. And then he gasped, once the reality of what Dr. Maisie had just said fully sank in.

He was going to have to _cut his own skin._ Just to bandage it up right afterwards. That was really the task they were being called upon to perform.

"All right" said the Chansey, handing out Swiss Army knives to each "A shallow cut, mind you, not one that would require stitches".

The knife felt cold in Lance's paw. He was being told to cut himself, just so that he could bandage himself up.

 _Sounds like a good idea,_ he thought sarcastically. And then he looked for a spot far down on his arm; he didn't want the blood to interfere with the golden yellow letters he had temporarily tattooed onto the back of his left paw.

He made a quick, shallow slice.

Trying not to howl in pain, he made an attempt not to panic at the sight of his own blood. Blood did not make him feel woozy at all, so that wasn't going to be a problem, but knowing that he'd caused it was the hardest pill to swallow.

"Okay, class. Now that all of you are bleeding, use the rubbing alcohol on the wipes to clean the wound, and then bandage it. It's that simple, and shouldn't take you too long. Unless…".

A Zoroark standing nearby (not Claire, since this one had the usual color of ponytail, and also male) seemed unsteady on his feet. He was wobbling back and forth, and it was clear to see that he was struggling to keep his balance.

He fell to the ground in a dead faint, his hand twitching slightly, but staying planted on the ground for the most part.

"Damn it, Cramer!" exclaimed Dr. Maisie emphatically. Running over to make sure he was okay, she said, "The rest of you guys, keep working. I need to make sure this guy gets taken to the hospital wing".

Lance walked over to the bottle of rubbing alcohol in the middle of the room and spread some on his arm.

It burned like nobody's business, and he had to grit his teeth to keep from yelling out in agony. He'd had wounds cleaned with rubbing alcohol before, but this was something completely different.

As soon as he no longer felt like the pain would force him into unconsciousness, he saw that Cramer had come to. Looking extremely embarrassed, the Zoroark allowed himself to be led out of the room and towards the hospital wing.

"Good thing the hospital wing is close to this room" Buck said. "Otherwise...I don't even want to know what would happen".

"He was just squeamish, that's all" the Flareon said. "There's no need to be worried about anything but his pride".

The others in the room snickered, but Lance felt as though it would have been wrong to join in. He finished bandaging up his self-inflicted wound, and Dr. Maisie came back in.

"Sorry about that" the Chansey said. "But I'm glad to see that the rest of you have not fainted. Continue your work, and I'll see to it that you get good marks".

After that, she walked over to Lance. "Lance Grant... _the famous_ Lance Grant…".

Dr. Maisie saw that Lance had bandaged his wound up very well, to the point that the bandage no longer had any red spots on it. There was no sign, other than the bandage, that he had even been hurt at all.

"Good job, Lance" the Chansey said. "That's ten diplomacy points for you".

The Lucario boy couldn't help but smile. It wasn't every day that he got a compliment like that. If what Troy had said about this place getting more brutal was true, this moment of bliss probably wouldn't last too long. Eventually, he'd be wishing that he'd never come here.

 _If I'm going to be wishing that eventually,_ he thought to himself, _clearly not yet. Things are going all right for me now._

However, he did have a vague sense of foreboding in the back of his mind...

* * *

 **Answer: My favorite band is Billy Talent. They're Canadian punk rockers whose music tackles various themes. I also enjoy Rucka Rucka Ali.**

 **Question: What other countries have you visited, besides your country of origin?**


	17. Two Types of Chicken

**Yeah, I came out with this one quickly. What can I say?**

 **It's primary day, the day Trump's going to take us out of the Iran nuclear deal, and a Tuesday. It's just a normal day in SnowLucario-ville, I guess, but a lot of things are happening today.**

 **I bring to you Chapter 17 of Poke Wars, Episode I!**

* * *

 _It's probably nothing,_ he tried to tell himself, but his brain wouldn't listen.

 _Usually, when you have a bad feeling about something, you're right. Listen to yourself this time, Lance. After this week is gone, it's gonna start to suck, and it's going to suck more than anything you've ever been through in your life._

Lance thought about the meeting he'd be having two weeks from now, if he got enough diplomacy points. He still didn't feel confident that he'd be a good negotiator. Then again, he'd never had much practice, but he still didn't want to be put in that position.

 _With my luck, I will,_ he thought bitterly as he made his way through the hallways to his next lesson, Target Practice.

Suddenly, he bumped into somebody. Nearly losing his balance, Lance started to apologize. "Sorry, sir, I just…".

The person he had bumped into turned around. As it turned out, it was Matt, the same Machamp who had helped him find his way around only yesterday.

"Oh. Hey, Lance" he said, not appearing to be angry at all.

"Hello, Matt" the Lucario boy replied. "Where are you heading?"

"Target practice".

"Me too" Lance said. "Might as well head there together, now that we've literally bumped into each other".

Matt chuckled. "Let's do this".

As soon as they were in the room, Lance looked around for JP, the very kind man who had taught him how to use aura only yesterday. However, he wasn't present, and, the more the Lucario boy searched around the room with his eyes, the more clear that became.

The only instructor in the room was General Whitefur, who was holding a bow with an arrow nocked. Aiming at the target, the white-furred Lucario pulled back the bowstring and took aim.

Said arrow hit the center of the target. Of course, this wasn't surprising; Lucas Whitefur had most likely been practicing from a very young age. That said, Lance was amazed that he'd been able to do that, especially considering that he might have gotten distracted by all the students filing into the room.

In addition to Matt and Lance, Brad, Buck, and Claire were also present. General Whitefur turned to address those five.

"It appears that you are the only ones I have today. Just five of you, and we have an extra target. This means that none of you will have to take turns".

 _Also,_ Lance thought excitably, _this is the first lesson I've had with only people I've met before. No strangers in here; that's pretty cool, if you ask me._

"All right. You've all been taught the proper form for bows and arrows. It's time to move a step up to the next level".

Lance's heart quickened its pace. He had a feeling that he knew what was coming next. The bandaged wound on his left arm pulsed; it wasn't that painful, but it made sure that he was aware of the situation.

"Guns" General Whitefur said. "That is going to be the weapon you will be using. And, let me tell you, these things are not to be trifled with; they can pack quite a punch".

Lance didn't want to be on the receiving end of that punch. He didn't know how much longer it would be until he saw combat, but, once that did happen, he was going to be in a world of worry.

 _Right now, the task is target practice,_ he told himself. _It's not as though I'm in the jungle right now, fending off attacks from the Skylock Empire._

That wasn't where he was, at least not yet. But it was where he would be soon, and even the mere knowledge of it was enough to scare him.

"Everyone, grab one and aim the target. Do _not_ take the safety off until your aim is firmly on the target!"

Lance did as he was told. The mere act of grabbing one of the guns was terrifying for him. He was glad that the safety was on, but he still couldn't help but get the feeling that, if someone accidentally flipped the safety off, and the gun discharged, it might hit him.

He tried to slow his breathing, but it was hard to do so when he was so scared of what might happen. He really might have been about to get shot.

 _Oh, stop worrying about that,_ he told himself. _There's an excellent hospital wing right here, I'm sure. They'll patch you up if that happens. But it won't._

All five of them eventually stood behind a line, ten yards back from the targets, weapons at the ready.

"Each gun has only a single bullet in it" General Whitefur said. "Once each of you have made their shot, I'll hand out some more bullets and show you guys how to load them in the future".

Lance could hardly believe that he was handling an actual gun. He'd never done so before. He couldn't help but feel the weight of the world on his shoulders as he held it, knowing that it was with this weapon that countless people had been killed over the course of history.

As if reading his mind, General Whitefur said, "You must be _extremely_ careful with these. Don't forget that you are, quite literally, holding death in your hands right now. This type of weapon has been used to murder countless humans and Pokemon over the course of history. So take this task as seriously as it deserves".

Once everyone else had nodded in response, Whitefur continued. "Once you are pointed directly at the target, you may turn the safety off. Then, only when I tell you to, you may fire the gun. Got it?"

Lance's palms were sweating. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to pull the trigger, the way he was feeling. He couldn't believe that he was actually about to fire a real gun.

"All right" Whitefur said. "Ready...aim...fire".

With a massive, collective bang, all five weapons went off. Lance looked ahead and saw that his bullet had hit the wall and slid to the floor. He had completely missed the target.

Looking down the line of recruits, Lance half-expected there to be one of them who had been shot. Given that there were no screams of pain, that was probably not a justified expectation.

"All right. I can see that...yes...Matt, Brad, and Claire, congratulations. Buck, Lance, you still need to work on it a bit".

The Lucario boy let out a deep breath. He'd known, of course, that he was a complete novice with a firearm. He hadn't known that he was _this much_ of a complete novice.

"Okay. Now that that went fairly smoothly, I will teach you how to reload the weapon. It's really not that difficult, but it does require some precision".

Lance gulped.

It had taken all of him, everything he had, to fire that gun. When it was trained on a _target,_ no less. How would he be able to aim it at a Pokemon or human being?

 _You've gotta do what you've gotta do,_ he told himself.

He noticed that was becoming a trend. Every so often, he would have to steel himself against the knowledge that he was going to have to commit dangerous and immoral acts as a member of the Hoenn Army.

General Whitefur taught them how to reload the gun, a task that Lance found difficult at first with his large, awkward paws. However, it didn't take long until it felt far more natural to him. It was no longer a daunting challenge.

In spite of the reservations Lance had about using the weapon to attack somebody in combat, he left the lesson feeling as if he had accomplished something. Perhaps it was just to prove to himself that he could fire a gun. Perhaps it was a little more than that.

Even if the time had been spent in a useful manner, he still badly wanted to get out of here. Being in a room with all of those weapons made him feel uneasy.

If he were to tell that to his parents right now, they would probably say something like, _Of course, Lance. You're much too big-hearted and gentle to use a weapon like that. You'd never hurt a soul!_

He wished that that was the reason why. But if he hadn't intended on hurting anybody, why had he come here?

The Lucario boy knew that he was going to be struggling with that question for a very long time. Even if he survived his service, he'd still wonder, decades later, why he had done this.

* * *

He found where Brad was sitting, and sat down next to him.

The Blaziken was eyeing the roast chicken in front of him, licking his lips. However, he hadn't taken a bite out of it.

"Why haven't you started eating the chicken, Brad?" Lance asked his friend.

Brad shrugged. "I like to torture myself for a bit, resisting the scrumptious chicken. I feel like...I don't know why I do it, to be honest".

Lance didn't know what to say in response, but he supposed that, for all of the things he did, there were at least some of them for which the reasons were unknown to him.

"D-did you like weaponry?" the Lucario boy asked the Blaziken. He wasn't one to stutter normally, but the weight of the question that had just gone through his lips was a little too much for him to bear.

"I did, thanks" Brad replied, finally taking up his fork and knife and cutting the chicken. Lance began doing the same to his portion as well.

Brad's aura didn't reveal anything that would have indicated that he was lying, so the Lucario boy took a bite out of his chicken. It was pretty awesome, with the seasonings put on in just the right ratio.

Lance was a little hesitant to reveal his own insecurities about using a weapon, but he decided that the Blaziken was someone he could trust.

"I was a little scared, honestly" the Lucario boy admitted quickly. "The idea of firing a gun was a little hard for me to do, you know?"

Brad nodded. "I know that that can be hard for some people. The important thing is that you'll be able to do it when it matters, when we're out in the jungle".

Suddenly, the seasoned chicken didn't taste so good. Brad had just reminded Lance of his biggest fear.

 _The jungle._ It was a place of deepest fear for Lance. He might have had a great time there just yesterday, but the afterglow could only last for so long.

He didn't want to tell Brad that he wasn't sure he'd be able to fire the gun once he was actually there. He wasn't sure that, when given the choice between shooting a fellow Lucario or dying, he'd choose shooting the fellow Lucario.

 _Stop worrying about a future date in time,_ Lance told himself. _Worry about today, like what your next lesson is going to be in. You want to prepare yourself for your time in the jungle, don't you?_

He had to agree with his internal monologue. He just had to.

Looking back at his schedule, he saw that he had Weaponry next.

 _I just HAD target practice. Why would I now have weaponry so soon?_

Scratching the back of his neck in frustration, he thought, _This is going to suck. And then Hunting, too...why does EVERYTHING involving guns have to start for me today?_

 _I guess I just got the short end of the stick. And I was going to have to deal with these things eventually. What difference does it make if it's today?_

"Yeah" he said to Brad. "I think that that's what's important, just like you say. I just want to know that I can do those things".

"And I really think you'll be brave enough to, when the time comes" the Blaziken replied. "I mean, you went ziplining with us yesterday. Takes a lot of guts to do that".

Lance badly wanted to be convinced of his own bravery, but that didn't do the job for him. He couldn't shake the thought that he was a coward, someone who would never be able to do anything _like_ what he'd be called on to do every day he was in combat.

When ziplining, he had, by contrast, known that he was fully safe. He had, after all, been wearing a full-body harness with a carabiner attached to the cable. That hadn't required nearly as much bravery as what would be required of him now.

The two finished the rest of their meal in near-complete silence. Of course, since there were hundreds of people in the Hub at this time, it couldn't truly be considered silence, at least in Lance's mind.

Once he'd finished his chicken, the Lucario boy looked at his schedule once more, just to confirm that he indeed had Weaponry.

Seeing that, he sighed, and it wasn't a happy sigh. It was a sigh of resignation to his fate.

* * *

 **Yeah, this was a very short chapter indeed. Next chapter, however, they will go hunting, and that will be a much longer chapter than this. That's why I thought this was an appropriate place to end it.**

 **Answer: I've been to Canada, Mexico, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France. Some say that I'm lucky to go on so many trips, but, honestly, I was dragged on a lot of them.**

 **Question: What is your favorite color?**


	18. The Most Dangerous Game

**Oh boy, I had SO MUCH FUN writing this chapter! I found it absolutely hilarious, and you'll see why soon. Perhaps I'm just sadistic like that; after all, I used to write Hunger Games fanfiction.**

 **Also, there will be a new format for the Q & As at the bottom of the chapters. You'll see what that is.**

 **Finally, I have reached the milestone of having 1,000,000 words archived on this site. You read that right: ONE MILLION. This is a mark that very few authors on FanFiction achieve, and I am extremely proud of it. I also reached 3,000 views on this story, so there is that.**

 **Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

Lance put down his gun, feeling very relieved that that was over.

He took a deep breath. He'd been very anxious about handling them, even though he had done it that morning as well. Now that the class was Weaponry instead of Target Practice, he'd had some hope that it would be a little different.

It was different, to a certain extent. The class had mostly been analysis about the rifles, and what they could do to the body of a human or Pokemon. Long story short: You did _not_ want to be on the receiving end of a bullet from that rifle.

"Okay, class" General Whitefur said, slamming the back of his rifle to the ground, much like a person who had just finished a changing of the guard routine. "Now that we're done with that, you may leave. Unless Hunting is on your schedule, in which case you will remain here with me".

 _Damn it,_ Lance thought to himself. _More of General Whitefur._

It wasn't as though the Lucario boy had a particular problem with Lucas Whitefur. From what he'd seen of him, the general seemed to be a decent man, if a little strict. However, Lance wasn't a particular fan of firearms. He hadn't been one before coming down here, and he certainly wasn't one now.

Lance continued standing in his position, once he had put his weapon away, which he had been instructed to do. He hadn't seen the point in this; after all, didn't it make the most sense to not put it back, and still have it for Hunting?

He watched as the others came in. There was a Flareon he didn't recognize, a Buizel, Brad, Buck, and Claire.

 _Those three sure are showing up in a lot of my lessons,_ he thought. _I suppose that we're all new here, though, so it would only make sense, if we are indeed grouped roughly by seniority here._

"Yes" said General Whitefur. "The six of you are going to go on this hunting expedition today. I hope that you will all follow me into the storage room".

Lance remembered how, only yesterday, he'd entered a very similar storage room. That room had held harnesses and helmets, the gear they had worn while ziplining in the jungle. He didn't know what they'd be putting on now.

"Hunting can be a very demanding sport" Whitefur said. "Therefore, it's important that all of you remain hydrated while out in the jungle. The weather is very hot today; according to our forecasts, it's a hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit, or forty degrees Celsius".

"That's hot" Buck said in a fairly childish voice. _He has to be younger than me,_ Lance realized.

"Indeed it is" the general replied, nodding. "It's only going to be made more so by the fact that all of you will be wearing bulletproof vests and helmets. This is just a precaution, so that you won't get hurt too badly by all the crossfire".

Lance didn't know exactly how effective a bulletproof vest was, but he was pretty sure that it had its limits. For one, it wasn't going to protect any parts of the body that it didn't cover. He resolved to make it of utmost importance that he did not end up in the crossfire of any stray bullets.

Once they arrived in the storage room, General Whitefur showed them all how to put on the vests, as well as donning one himself. He then told the recruits to wait while he walked into a nearby room.

When he came out, he was holding what looked like six ankle monitors, the type that people on house arrest wore.

"What are those?" Claire asked.

"These are your trackers" the general explained. "These will not permit you to move more than a mile and a half away from the starting point. I'll show you the way there, since all of our area is underground".

 _It's a little weird that we all have to wear ankle monitors for this,_ Lance thought. _Something seems a little fishy about all of this…_

"Follow me" Whitefur told them, gesturing towards somewhere else, outside the room.

The general led the group out of the storage room and into a tunnel that was adjacent to it. He led them down the dark tunnel, which was lit only by several torches.

"This isn't real fire, just so you know" the general said. "It would not be safe to have real fire down here. We're all about safety here at the academy".

 _Yeah,_ Lance thought bitterly, _you're REALLY concerned about safety when you're having us go hunting. At least we've got bulletproof vests._

General Whitefur led them down the tunnel for a mile or more. Then, they arrived at a door.

"This door leads to an elevator that will take us up into the jungle" he said. "The six of you will ride together. I will enter the elevator about ten minutes later".

There was _definitely_ something weird about all of this.

The Buizel in the group looked at General Whitefur with a look of fear. "Why will you wait ten minutes? Is there something you haven't told us?"

"No" General Whitefur said. "Just get out of the elevator and spread out. Get as far away as you can from the elevator and go hunting. Except...oh, yeah, now that you mention it, there is one thing I forgot to mention".

"Spit it out" Claire replied irritably. _Irritably_ was probably the wrong word; she said it with more of a tone of deepest loathing. It seemed that she suspected what was going on.

Whitefur nodded, a gleam in his eye. "I'm going to be the one hunting all of _you"._

* * *

"Is that even legal?" Buck asked. In his quivering voice, the Ponyta sounded like he was about twelve years old, even though he was probably at least sixteen.

"Yes, it is" General Whitefur replied. He pointed his gun at the recruits. "Get in the elevator if you value your lives".

"I don't understand-" Brad said.

"The ten minutes starts now".

The recruits didn't need any more urging than that. Lance didn't know about the others, but he was genuinely fearing for his life now.

 _I'm wearing a bulletproof vest,_ he reminded himself. _It's not like I'm going to be automatically killed. Still, though, I can't believe that he's authorized to do this to us!_

They crammed themselves into the elevator, and Lance found himself the closest one to the door. There were no buttons in the elevator, so he wasn't entirely sure how they were going to get up to the surface.

The lift gave a lurch and started moving upwards slowly. Lance hadn't been sure exactly how far underground they were, but it must have been a decent distance, because it took about a minute for the elevator to reach the top.

"All spread out" Brad said once they were at the surface. The elevator opened up to a view of the jungle, rather than a hallway or something similar.

Nobody protested that idea. As reassuring as it might have been to be in a group, Lance knew that it would only increase his odds of being discovered. That was one thing he did _not_ want, not one bit, so he did as the Blaziken said.

Because Lance had fairly long legs by Lucario standards, he was able to cover long distances in a short amount of time. He began high-tailing it out of there, moving as quickly as he could.

 _I still can't believe that this is legal,_ he thought. _Are those real bullets in that gun? I'd better pretend that they are, just in case - I do NOT want to get shot today!_

It wasn't long until the Lucario boy realized that General Whitefur had been right about one thing. It was extremely hot today, and quite humid as well, worse than it had been yesterday. And, just as Whitefur had told them, the bulletproof vest was making things even worse.

Soon, Lance was soaked in sweat. In addition, judging by how wet the ground was, it had rained the previous night or earlier that day, making the ground slicker than usual.

It wasn't long before Lance tripped over a tree root, twisting his ankle.

 _Oww…_

The pain fortunately didn't last too long, but the panic lasted a lot longer. Even if it didn't hurt too badly, he would certainly be limping for the next...what was it going to be? An _hour_ in this dense jungle?

 _I can't afford to be limping. If I am, that doesn't bode well for my chances of survival._

He tried to keep reminding himself that he was protected by body armor, that he wasn't going to get killed, just injured...but he didn't really want to be injured either. He just wanted to get out of today without anyone getting hurt.

Eventually, Lance was able to get up. He realized that he'd run into a much thicker area of jungle.

The land that he'd started out in was mostly grass, with very few trees of any sort. However, the further he had gotten away from that elevator, the thicker the forest had become.

Once he was back on his feet, Lance knew that he had to get moving again, and fast. He'd been told that the area was only about a mile and a half in radius, meaning it was three miles across. He couldn't afford to waste any time.

Lance reached the crest of a hill. He'd barely noticed that he'd been running uphill at all, even though his fur was soaked with even more sweat, and he was short of breath. The heat of the day was really having an effect on him.

Once he was at the top, he looked down and saw that he was staring at a valley. He was pretty sure that he'd been running in, more or less, a straight line ever since he had left the elevator. Going through this valley was the best way to put more distance between himself and said elevator.

He looked down into the valley, which was very grassy, without any trees. There was a stream running down the hillside, surrounded on both sides by a tiny, sandy beach.

Anyway...the valley. This wasn't good, because he wouldn't be able to see General Whitefur coming, if indeed he did decided to come calling to this area.

 _I've got to get through this fast,_ he told himself. _Otherwise I'm going to be in a world of trouble._

Lance was poor at judging time, but he knew that the ten minutes must have been at least close to gone by this point. He certainly felt as though he'd been running for ten minutes or more, because he was very short of breath from running up that hill.

Without wasting any time, he limped down the hill. He was _forced_ to limp, because his ankle was bothering him too much for him to move in any other way. Lance was going fairly slowly, but slowly was better than not at all.

 _In my state, I'm a sitting duck! He can get me whenever he wants. Let's just hope he doesn't go for me first!_

Once he was at the bottom of the hill, he waded across the stream. It wasn't moving very quickly, and the cold water helped slightly to soothe the pain in his ankle. The effect wasn't too pronounced, though, and he knew that the only true cure would be to rest his ankle. But he knew that he couldn't rest, because he would be in a hell of a lot more pain if he got caught by General Whitefur.

Breaking off a tree's branch and using it for a walking stick, Lance was able to make his way up the hill on the other side of the valley. After two hard-fought minutes, he had done it.

The Lucario boy stopped to catch his breath, but now was no time to take a rest. He had to go further in this direction, put even more distance between himself and General Whitefur.

In that instant, he loathed Lucas Whitefur with a burning passion. The general clearly thought that this was funny, or at least good training, to chase down recruits in the middle of the jungle, but Lance sure didn't think so.

This whole scenario reminded him of a short story that he'd read in school a couple years back. The man had washed up on a deserted island and been told to play a game in order to escape...but it was the world's most dangerous game, because he was being hunted.

 _Literary references can't help you now, Lance!,_ a voice inside his brain taunted him. _This is the military. You live or die on your own merits._

Lance certainly didn't want to die, so he kept on running. He thought that he saw a Deerling in the distance, running through the woods, but he wasn't quite sure.

 _I thought THAT was the type of game that would be hunted,_ he thought, smiling ruefully.

* * *

Lance was sprinting down a hill when he hit something hard, sending him crashing to the ground like a bowling pin.

At first, he thought he must not have seen a tree. That would have explained it.

But then he looked up and saw that there was nothing there. He hadn't crashed into a tree, he hadn't crashed into anything at all.

And then the beeping started.

 _It's coming from my ankle monitor!_

That realization led to another one.

 _That's what it's for. They're tracking me, and the ankle monitor must connect me to a force field here. This is as far as I can go!_

The Lucario boy stood up, rubbing his tender aura-sensing organs. They had really taken a hit there, but he didn't think he had gotten a concussion or anything like that.

 _Well, as long as I'm here, I'm a sitting duck, so I have to get away. I can't let him catch me._

Lance turned tail and started running back up the hill, frustrated. He'd wasted time down here, hopefully not more than he could afford to. Praying to Arceus above that he wasn't the one Whitefur was chasing, he crested the hill.

Deciding to move around the circle, towards the sun, he started running in that direction.

Almost immediately, he realized how much of a mistake that was. It was so obvious that the sun would make it harder for him to see. If he couldn't look ahead of him without being blinded by the light, that would make it that much more difficult for him to get away from General Whitefur.

He wasn't going to turn around, though. Squinting in order to make out details in the landscape ahead, he started to think about the nightmares he had had.

 _Is that mechanical Lucario going to return or not?,_ he wondered, completely and totally terrified. His heart was hammering a million times a minute.

If it did, he would, half-blinded by the intense Hoenn sun, be mostly defenseless against it. He'd be at its mercy, for better or for worse.

Soon, Lance found himself ankle-deep in swampy water. Looking around, he saw that he was in the middle of a small pond, with trees in various areas around it.

The smell of sulphur was present, and Lance tried not to gag. He remembered one instance in which he had visited the geysers at a national park in Sinnoh with his family. The stench had nearly been enough to make him faint.

 _Why is there sulphur here?,_ he wondered. _I didn't think that it could usually be found in the swamp._

It was difficult to run through the dirty water, so Lance was forced to wade quickly. All seemed to be going well until-

"I see you!"

Lance turned around to find that General Lucas Whitefur was running through the swampy water towards him. He had his gun raised, aimed directly at Lance.

The Lucario boy tried not to show any signs of fear. That would make Whitefur more confident and more likely to shoot.

At the bottom of the hill on the edge of the region they were allowed in, Lance would have been a sitting duck. This place wasn't much better, unfortunately. He had to get away.

But that task was easier said than done when you were two feet deep in swamp water. Running was going to be exhausting, especially when you had twisted your ankle not too long ago.

If there was any consolation, it was that General Whitefur was now limited in the distance he could cover as well. That wasn't that much consolation, however, because the fact remained that he could shoot Lance at any point.

There was the sound of a gun going off from behind him, and Lance ducked to avoid it. He barely did; the bullet soared through the air, just two or three inches above his head.

"I'll get you!" yelled Whitefur, and Lance started freaking out. He tried to remind himself that his life wasn't in danger, that the military training would never deliberately put his life in danger, but that was also easier said than done.

With as much power as he could muster, the Lucario boy started sprinting through the swamp. He tripped at one point, and got a faceful of the dirty water.

 _I'll want a shower when I get back,_ Lance thought bitterly. _This really sucks._

He managed to make it to the end of the swampy area, and then he looked behind him as he was running.

To his surprise, he couldn't find General Whitefur anywhere. The general must have moved on to a different target...but what sense did that make?

 _Really, why would he move on to someone else?,_ Lance wondered. _I was perfectly accessible to him. He just had to shoot me, and I'd be down._

Unless…

Suddenly, he was seized from behind and hoisted into the air.

Lance gasped for air; General Whitefur was _strong._ He was able to squeeze his chest, leaving the Lucario boy fighting for every breath.

"I've got you now" Whitefur taunted. He sounded nothing like the mostly benevolent weapons teacher back at the academy. Now, he was something completely different.

Doing the only thing he could think of, Lance kicked the general in the groin as hard as he possibly could.

It worked; Whitefur stumbled, dropping Lance, howling in pain. The Lucario boy took the opportunity to run away.

From a hit like that, it would probably take General Whitefur about a minute to recover. It was shorter than he would have liked, of course; not a very substantial head start. He just had to hope that the general decided to go in a different direction and not pursue him.

Three or so minutes later, Lance was convinced that that was indeed the case. As he ran through the sparse jungle, he believed more and more strongly that General Whitefur had moved on to someone else.

He kept on running, however, until he didn't think he could any more.

 _You get one minute,_ he told himself, _one minute to rest. After that, you're running again. Your life is on the line, General Whitefur is absolutely remorseless. You can't afford to stop._

Lance wished that he could have rested for a longer period of time than that, but a minute was about as long as he thought he could spare. He didn't want to be shot while he was resting.

Now that some of the adrenaline had worn off, now that he was no longer being actively pursued, Lance was more aware of just how hot and tired he was. The humidity must have been a hundred and twenty percent, and the sun was beating down hard. He was convinced that it was going to fry his skull.

Thus far, he hadn't come across any other recruits. He wasn't sure how long that was going to remain the case, or if he'd go this whole time without seeing any others.

 _It's probably for the best that we're all spread out,_ Lance thought. _At least, I THINK we're all spread out. Maybe someone has formed an alliance or something, but I doubt it._

Indeed, the idea of forming an alliance seemed rather foolish to Lance. Assuming that General Whitefur was focusing on one person at a time, you were pretty much doubling the chances of your group being his target. That was obviously not something you wanted.

Once he was sure a minute had passed, he started running again. He was going to run as hard and fast as he needed to, because he was determined that he would not get shot.

He didn't know how much time had passed by the time he reached a denser area of jungle. Here, he had to be very careful not to run into any trees, or else he would have been in a world of hurt. He could already imagine just how painful that would be...or maybe he was underestimating it.

Either way, he was glad that he was no longer moving exactly in the same direction as the sun. Indeed, the sun appeared to be moving behind the clouds now.

 _If it makes things a little cooler, I'm okay with that,_ Lance decided. _But that does mean a little less glare for General Whitefur._

At last, he reached another clearing. He kept on running until he bumped into someone else, sending both crashing to the ground.

Once Lance was able to see again, he noticed who it was that he had just crashed into. "Brad?"

The Blaziken nodded. "Hey, Lance. How are you holding up?"

"Pretty well" the Lucario boy replied. "I only wish that we weren't getting chased right now, otherwise I'd love to talk a little longer. I need to focus all my air on running".

"I get it" Brad replied. "Personally, I agree with you. Priority number one is to get out of here".

Lance nodded. _I'm glad we understand each other,_ he thought.

Noting that Brad went to Lance's left in the clearing, the Lucario boy decided that he'd turn to the right. He was a little worried about crashing into the invisible force field again, but he decided that, between that and staying closer to the central elevator, the force field was the lesser of the two evils.

"It's so hot here" Lance lamented aloud in a panting voice. Instantly, he clamped a paw over his mouth, but the damage had been done. He wasn't sure if General Whitefur was anywhere nearby, but, if so, he might have just signed his own death warrant.

As he reached another small hill, he found the Flareon from earlier. He was walking slowly, clearly trying to conserve his energy. Lance could have pointed out how dumb of an idea that was.

"Lance Grant, right?" the Flareon asked.

The Lucario boy nodded. "That's me. The famous Lance Grant, who transformed into a Lucario, at your service. What do you want?"

"Just making sure it was you" the Flareon replied. "My name's Freddie".

"Nice" Lance replied, although he wasn't sure why that was relevant. If Freddie wanted to align with him in order to get away from Whitefur, he would be in for a rude awakening.

The two stared at each other for a good ten seconds. It was a very awkward silence, because neither of them knew what to say.

Finally, the Lucario boy broke the silence. "Look, if you want to form an alliance, I'm not up for that. I really think it's best that we stay away from each other. Assuming we both survive, we can eat dinner together".

"Sounds nice" Freddie replied. "Well, see you later".

Lance waved good-bye as the Flareon began sprinting away. He wasn't going to stick around in this area any longer than he needed to.

And he ran. He ran so far away.

* * *

It wasn't long before, completely exhausted, he collapsed to the ground. He wasn't able to go any further, having run at full force for the better part of an hour.

His head hurt as though he had the flu. He was sweating, probably looking as though he had just gotten out of a swimming pool. His lungs rattled like a box of rocks.

Lamenting his physical condition, Lance wiped a paw across his forehead. If anything, it had only gotten hotter, and the sun was only beating down more strongly.

 _Well, I'm screwed now,_ the Lucario boy thought. _If General Whitefur comes by, I'm dead._

After taking a breath as deep as he could muster, he began climbing the nearest tree. He wanted to get as high as possible, because he doubted that the general was that good at climbing trees. Lance would have the last laugh.

He had barely gotten twenty feet above the ground when he heard laughing behind him.

This wasn't friendly, childish, playful laughter, though. This laughter could only be described as malicious.

Lance looked down to see the one person he didn't want to see.

Standing at the base of the tree, making all the gestures that would be expected of someone about to leap onto the trunk and start climbing, was General Lucas Whitefur.

* * *

 **Answer: It's #F4CA32, the same color ink that is tattooed onto Lance on his second day at the academy.**

 **To answer Johnathan-Mandrake's question, SnowLucario is just a name that I found to sound interesting, so I decided to use it. It's as simple as that.**

 **And there is the new format. Somebody asks me a question in a review, and I answer it here. I look forward to seeing your questions.**

 **See you guys next time!**


	19. Walking on Sunshine

**I had extra time to write for an odd reason; I woke up on Friday morning with a fever of 100, and couldn't go to my junior prom, which really sucks. On the bright side, I did get this chapter out.**

 **The title comes from a 1980s song about a topic that is featured in this chapter. I'd like to thank everyone who has helped me to get to this point, and know that we're just getting started. This could have as many as 70 chapters.**

* * *

 _Try to get me,_ Lance silently taunted General Whitefur. _I don't know if you'll be able to._

As it would soon turn out, however, the general was very skilled indeed in tree-climbing. One might not have thought so, given the fact that he was probably middle-aged, but it appeared that he posed a real threat to Lance.

The Lucario boy decided to climb higher. Jumping from twenty feet wasn't going to be a good idea, even if Lucario were extremely agile.

"I'll get you!" General Whitefur taunted, although Lance tried not to hear him. He flailed his legs wildly whenever he got the chance, so as to possibly kick the general in the head and cause him to lose his balance on the tree.

Eventually, Lance reached a height of roughly seventy feet above the forest floor. A fall from this height would likely be fatal, so the Lucario boy clung to the branch for dear life.

 _At least I'm safe here,_ Lance told himself. _There is no way in hell that he's going to be able to climb all the way up to where I am without me noticing._

No sooner had he had that thought when, out of nowhere, he felt a searing pain in his chest.

At first, the Lucario boy thought it must have been a bee or wasp sting. He'd had a couple of those in his life, and none of them had been pleasant. However, that must have been it, otherwise…

In the beginning, the pain had been bad. Now, it was far worse, and it was spreading throughout his whole abdomen. He realized that this must be what it felt like to be shot.

 _Just when you thought you were safe…_

General Whitefur was cackling. "I got you!" he exclaimed happily, to which Lance had no response but to grit his teeth in order to try and ward off the pain.

The general continued. "These are fake bullets. They are meant to simulate the pain of a gunshot without actually making you die or get seriously hurt, the way real bullets do".

Lance nodded weakly, eyes blazing with hatred. He couldn't believe that the general had been hunting them so casually like that.

Whitefur shrugged. "Do you _really_ think that we'd put your lives in danger during training, Lance? That's why waterboarding was banned in training, it was deemed too dangerous. This is just meant to be a simulation of the real thing".

Lance pulled what looked like a hypodermic needle out of his bulletproof vest. Clearly, that had been the fake bullet.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you".

The Lucario boy's pain went from ten on the scale to twelve. He felt as though he were bleeding out, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to staunch the flow of blood.

"For what it's worth, time's almost up. And you're the only one I caught, so there is that".

 _You're the only one I caught._

Whether or not General Whitefur meant for that to sound belittling to Lance, the latter still felt that way. He felt as though the general had been making fun of him for being the only one not to evade capture.

And it was quite embarrassing indeed.

Suddenly, what sounded like an alarm clock went off, and the general looked at his watch. "Yep. Time's up. Let's head back to the start, shall we?"

Lance didn't want to walk all the way back to the elevator with the man who had just shot him. Indeed, he didn't know if he'd be able to make it there, what with the level of pain that he was in.

However, he knew what he had to do, and he did it, slowly climbing down the tree, keeping pressure on his "wound".

As soon as the Lucario boy hit the ground, his legs swayed a little. He realized that he hadn't had any water to drink ever since embarking on the "hunting expedition".

"We'll get back to the start, and you should drink plenty of fluids" Whitefur advised. "You've just been running around for an hour and a half in intense heat. That's not something that you should do without staying hydrated; by the time you start getting thirsty, you are _already_ dehydrated".

Lance could feel his head throbbing with every beat of his heart, and he knew that dehydration had to be the cause. He knew that, in order to get some water, he was simply going to have to make it back to the entrance.

Troy had told him that, starting about a week after they arrived at the academy, training became hellish. Now, however, Lance was starting to doubt what Troy had said.

The hellish part didn't start a week from now. From the Lucario boy's perspective, the hellish part was already here.

* * *

"Congratulations", General Whitefur said. "All of you have managed to evade me for an hour and a half. Well, except for Lance here, but he's fine now".

When all the recruits gave the general furious looks, Whitefur responded, holding his paws in the air. "The bullets were all fake. They were meant to simulate the pain of a gunshot without actually doing that much damage. So, please, put down your pitchforks".

The recruits didn't seem to look at the general with any less contempt, but at least they no longer appeared to want to kill him. That was definitely a plus.

"Well", said General Whitefur, "it's time to head back. You guys all need to rehydrate, and, besides, you have your next lesson coming up quite soon. As always, consult the schedules on your arms to confirm what it is".

Lance looked at his left arm and saw that he had Aquatics next. It wasn't something that he was looking forward to, not at all.

"Follow me".

They found the elevator and piled in. This time, all seven of them were packed in there, and it felt almost to Lance as though they were sardines.

As long as he could remember, Lance had suffered from claustrophobia, a fear of tight spaces. This was only exacerbated by his fairly large stature. He tried not to panic as they were heading back underground.

 _It's nothing,_ he told himself. _You're just going back underground. You're not going to be in any danger once you get down there; you just survived the hunt, the world's most dangerous game. Perk up, dude._

It was hard to perk himself up when he knew that Aquatics was coming next. He'd already worked his body so hard, for so long, that he just couldn't stomach the idea of having swimming next, one of the most vigorous exercises in existence.

 _They'd better have something really hearty for dinner,_ he thought. _Because one thing is for sure; I'm really burning these calories._

He tried not to think about dinner, preferring instead to focus on the present. To borrow a saying, today was a gift, and that was why it was called _the present._

 _Every day is a gift,_ Lance thought, _when you're in the military and don't know how much longer you're going to live._

Indeed, as soon as he had come here, he'd accepted his fate. Now, it was just a matter of seeing how much longer Arceus allowed him to live.

 _I'm not going until he says I am,_ he became determined to believe. _And that time isn't going to be anytime soon. I am in this thing for the long haul._

But it was hard to convince himself of that, particularly when he'd just endured an hour and a half of being hunted down. He knew that, next time, he wouldn't have the peace of mind that a bulletproof vest provided.

At the end of the tunnel, Claire appeared to waver.

"Are you okay, Claire?" Lance asked her.

Instantly, he chastised himself. _You just completely and totally jumped the gun! You shouldn't have given them any reason to think that you have a crush on her; NOW, they're going to be suspicious._

Perhaps they would be, although General Whitefur asked the Zoroark girl the same question.

"Yeah, I'm fine" Claire replied. But she didn't look fine. Indeed, she looked very dizzy, as though she were about to pass out.

"You don't _look_ fine" Buck said. The Ponyta was fairly insensitive in saying that, Lance thought, but that didn't mean that he was wrong.

"I am" the Zoroark girl said, before falling to the ground in a dead faint.

Brad's jaw dropped, as did Freddie's. General Whitefur, however, continued to look remarkably unconcerned, as though this was something that happened every day in his company.

"Textbook case of overexertion and dehydration" the general said. "This happens all the time. Everyone else, go to your normal lessons".

Lance tried not to appear too worried, but, on the inside, he was completely freaking out. He had never seen anyone faint in person, and that definitely worried him. However, he knew that there was a hospital wing here, where Claire could presumably be taken care of very well.

The general and the other recruits watched as the Zoroark girl slowly came to. "What...happened?" she asked.

"You passed out" General Whitefur replied. "Don't worry, you're in great hands. We'll head down to the hospital wing; you're going to be fine".

Claire nodded weakly. She didn't appear capable of saying anything else, and it struck Lance just how horrible it must have been for her to have to keep running at such high speeds through the jungle.

 _She'll be okay,_ the Lucario boy reminded himself. _She has to be._

As the general supported Claire, he led her towards what Lance assumed was the hospital wing. Lance reminded himself that he could always go and visit her later, depending on how long she was going to be there.

He still had Aquatics, however, and he wasn't going to miss that, even if he really wanted to. He felt that it was his duty to attend all of his lessons, no matter how exhausted he might have been.

 _No matter if I'm the next one to pass out,_ he thought bitterly.

As it would turn out, Aquatics wasn't any easier than Hunting had been.

Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that Lance was already exhausted and not in the mood to get any more exercise today. For the most part, he was worried about Claire.

 _Man, I just hope she's all right. I'm sure that she'll get better eventually, won't she? Because she just has to, or else…_

 _No, stop that. Bad brain. Claire is going to be fine. She's not going to die of dehydration; she's probably feeling a lot better right now._

It was hard to imagine that, though, when your muscles were completely burning. He'd just had Hunting, and he was going to have a free period before dinner during which he could visit Claire. He held on to that thought as hard as he could.

By the time the five laps of the pool and thirty minutes of treading water had been completed, Lance's muscles felt as though they were being crushed in a blender. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep, but he knew that he couldn't do that without completely and totally embarrassing himself.

At last, he could find the hospital wing and see where Claire had been taken. Today's schedule had built in a time during which he could do something of his choice, which he was grateful for. He didn't like feeling as though he had no free time.

Thankfully, it wasn't too hard to find the hospital wing. The pathway was marked, and for good reason. If someone was seriously sick or hurt, it really wouldn't be beneficial for the people transporting them to get lost in the seeming maze of tunnels underneath the jungles of Hoenn.

Once he was in the hospital wing, the task became even easier. First, however, it might be necessary to describe the room. So I will.

It looked like a standard-issue hospital ward, with a long row of beds on one side and a long row of beds on the other. The beds looked like normal hospital beds, not that Lance was an expert on what hospital beds looked like.

In one of the beds, Claire was sitting up straight. At first, she looked quite energetic, ready to take on the world, as though her passing out earlier had never happened.

And then harsh reality sunk in. Lance looked to the left of her bed and saw that a bag hanging from a pole was connected to her arm. An IV.

As if reading the Lucario boy's mind, Claire said, "Yeah. I couldn't keep down oral fluids, so they had to give me an IV. That's just how overheated I got".

"Man" Lance replied. "You must've really been running hard out there".

The Zoroark girl nodded. "I must have been sprinting at an insane pace. It had felt like a normal pace, but I guess with all this fur...oh, dang it, did I slip up again?"

Claire, in her exhaustion, had made her biggest slip yet. Lance was about to catch her in the act, so to speak.

"Claire", he asked, "are you sure you weren't once a human? Because my aura says you were".

She frowned. "Why are you asking me that now? Why not start with, _How are you feeling, Claire?"_

Lance raised his paws in the air. "Sorry, sorry. How are you feeling?"

"A hell of a lot better than I was earlier, thanks" the Zoroark girl replied. "The technology here...they say that, as soon as this bag of saline is drained, I can go".

"Nice".

Claire nodded. "It's nice, indeed. But, to answer your question, yes, I was once a human. But why does it really matter?"

Lance's eyes turned as wide as tennis balls. "Are you kidding me? It matters more than anything! Because I was once a human as well, and I'm trying to get to the bottom of how I turned into a Lucario".

"I suppose" the Zoroark girl said, although she didn't sound too enthusiastic. Lance realized that she must still have been pretty tired.

"I think I'll head back to my room now" Lance said. "I need to think about things a little more".

"Suit yourself" Claire replied, looking at the IV in her arm as though it were a watch. "Want to sit next to each other at dinner?"

Lance smiled "Sure thing".

As he left the hospital wing, Lance had a hard time defining why he felt so happy all of a sudden. It wasn't as though things had suddenly started going his way; on the contrary, his muscles felt extremely stiff and over-extended, and he was dreading tomorrow, when he'd probably be aching a great deal.

Instead, it was the simple realization that _she liked him back._

* * *

As Lance walked into his room, where Troy was reading a book, he tried to keep a decent poker face. He didn't want to give away how happy he had become all of a sudden.

It was easier said than done.

"What's so awesome, Lance?" Troy asked him.

"I'd rather not say" Lance replied, still trying to remain as expressionless as Don Blaziken had been in his campaign ad.

"I see" the other Lucario replied. "Well, I'm glad things seem to be going well for you. I'll be here to talk if you need me".

"Thanks" Lance said, although he didn't know if he needed Troy anymore. After having been on several walks from his room to the dining hall now, he had a pretty good idea of where it was, without the need to be led there.

"It's no problem".

It wasn't easy for Lance to get that thought out of his head, however. He couldn't help but find it difficult to fathom that _she liked him back._

What was there to like about him? As a human, he'd been somewhat flabby, even if he was relatively good-looking. Now, as a Lucario, he felt rather clumsy. He wasn't sure if he liked being in this form.

 _Not being a Lucario probably would have made today easier,_ he thought to himself. _What with not having a huge coat of fur to run around in._

He tried not to think about the hunt. Every time he did, he kept remembering just how much fear he had felt during every single second of it, just how stressful and terrifying it had been.

 _I can't believe that happened. That that was even legal. At least I was wearing a bulletproof vest._

But how long would it be until they were out in the jungle proper, fighting against the Skylock Empire's forces, and he was _not_ wearing a bulletproof vest? That was the question he wanted answered...or was it?

Lance didn't have the energy to do anything. He didn't even have the energy to talk to Troy, or even to fall asleep. The long period of running through the jungle and the Aquatics lesson had absolutely taken their toll on him. Every time he tried to stand up, he felt his legs ache again.

 _That's definitely going to hurt tomorrow,_ one side of his brain said.

 _Tomorrow? I'm pretty sure it's hurting RIGHT NOW,_ said the other side of his brain cynically.

The nonpartisan, rational part of Lance's mind said, _Maybe I should get tested for multiple personality disorder. It certainly seems as though there are two people inside my head, warring with each other. This is just insane._

Eventually, Troy said that it was time to head to the dining hall for dinner, and Lance stood up again. He was a little embarrassed about the fact that he had to lean on Troy for support while doing so.

"Tough day today?"

Lance nodded. "I had both Hunting and Aquatics. Ninety minutes of running around in the jungle, followed by ninety minutes of being in the water...that's just brutal".

Now it was Troy's turn to nod. "I've got to say, Lance, I'm not kidding about the first week being easy. While that is certainly tiring, you're genuinely going to wish that you had another day like today by the time you reach the second week. You'll think of these as the good old days, and, honestly, who could blame you?"

"Thanks for making my muscles hurt more" Lance said.

Troy chucked. "My pleasure".

Both boys laughed about it as they headed into the dining hall.

The first person Lance saw was Claire. She was looking much better than she had earlier, when she had literally fainted right in front of him.

"Man, they really got you back on your feet quick" the Lucario boy said.

Claire smiled. "I know!" she exclaimed happily. "I'm feeling really well. I think that we should find seats...I've heard it's pasta with meatballs today. That's what we're having".

Lance was pretty happy about that. He knew that pasta was a high-calorie food, and that was exactly what he needed after a day like today. He needed to keep his strength up, because it was only going to get harder from here on out.

"How was Aquatics, Lance?" the Zoroark girl asked him.

"How did you know I had that?"

"I saw the schedule on your left arm" Claire said. "It made it pretty obvious. That's what I was going to have, too, until I passed out".

"I see" Troy replied. "By the way, my name's Troy Rosendale. I'm Lance's roommate".

"Oh. Hey, Troy" Claire replied. "I'm Claire Morrisey. I came here the same day that Lance did".

Lance half expected the Zoroark girl to continue by saying, _and I have a bit of a crush on him,_ but she didn't. Which was, quite frankly, a good thing; Lance would have been highly embarrassed if she had said that.

"Anyway" Lance said, trying to steer them away from this dangerous topic, "it was brutal. Claire, you should be glad that you didn't have to participate in it, because my muscles are in so much pain right now".

"Aye" Troy replied. "And it will only get worse. Days like this will come more and more frequently".

The Lucario boy didn't really want to think about that. He was very hungry at this point, so he led Troy and Claire towards an area with three open seats, where pasta with meatballs, salad, and garlic bread had been set out for them to enjoy.

"Normally, the harder the day we've all had, the heartier the meal" Troy said. "Today was pretty tough for me as well; had to run ten miles through the jungle carrying a rucksack".

Lance didn't know how far he'd run that afternoon; it might have been about that distance, or it might have been a little less. All he did know was that he was as exhausted as he had ever been.

Having exerted himself to such an extreme degree that afternoon, Lance ate with a passion. He'd gotten so hungry from all of that exercise that he just couldn't help it. Unfortunately, there were no seconds - you got what was on your plate, and that was that.

The meeting that occurred that evening was pretty much just the same as the one that had happened the previous day. No new information had been revealed to them, just the fact that they were still in the process of selecting the recruits who would negotiate with the Jungle Queen.

 _Do I really want to be one of them?,_ Lance wondered. _I mean, it would be an honor and all that, but all of the stress involved...maybe they should count me out. I just don't know._

One thing was for sure; either way, he was going to have to deal with a lot of stress while he was at the academy, and, later, on the front lines. It was going to be an absolutely brutal five years.

Lance looked up at the sky. Of course, down here, there was no sky, since they were underground.

With a gleam in his eye, he thought, _Arceus, bring it on. I can handle it._

Nothing else of note happened until Lance was in bed. As soon as he closed his eyes, he was assaulted by a nightmare.

He was running through the jungle once again, feeling very panicked indeed. At first, he didn't realize why he felt this way.

And then he looked behind him and saw the danger.

Lance was being chased by a horde of white-furred Lucario. All of them were wearing bulletproof vests, and all of them were carrying guns. They looked just like General Lucas Whitefur.

The blue-furred Lucario ran as quickly as he could, but he saw that they were also coming in from his front. There was going to be no other way for him to escape, unless…

 _Another tree?,_ he wondered. _Arceus, it WOULD be that way, wouldn't it?_

Lance leaped onto the trunk and started climbing upwards at a fast rate, as fast as he could muster. This wasn't easy, because he could feel the Whitefurs nipping at his heels.

He climbed twenty, forty, sixty, eighty...a hundred feet above the forest floor. As he looked down, however, he saw that the nearest generals were not twenty feet below him.

Lance then bumped his head on something, and felt several sharp pains all over his body. This caused him to let go of the branch and fall far, far down.

* * *

 **I didn't get any questions, because I didn't get any reviews on the last chapter. I hope that I do get some reviews on this chapter; even just the question would make my day.**

 **In any case, enjoy the rest of your weekend!**


	20. Drain the Swamp

**Here comes Chapter 20! It's a pretty good length, I think. I did a lot of writing today, so I was able to put this one out.**

 **Also, for a quick stat check, because why not? (From here on out, my plan is to reveal the stats after every five chapters).**

 **Reviews: 29**

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 **Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

Lance woke with a start.

At first, he hadn't realized what had caused such an abrupt return to consciousness. Normally, he woke up pretty slowly.

Then he remembered the dream he'd just had. _What_ had that been all about?

 _I think it's pretty obvious,_ he told himself. _It's all about the fact that, yesterday, I got chased around the jungle by General Whitefur. That's why._

Somehow, however, that just felt like too simple of an explanation. He'd heard of the principle of Occam's razor, that one should dismiss explanations that required the most assumptions, but even that didn't comfort him.

 _Well, what does it matter?,_ he thought.

Lance looked at the floor and saw that there was an envelope that had been set down there, next to his bed. It had his name on it.

At first, he was confused, and then it came back to him.

 _Of course,_ he thought. _I sent them a letter. But it can't be this soon, can it? I didn't think they'd reply this quickly!_

Lance supposed that they had to have some kind of delivery plane for letters. That was probably the only way that letters could be delivered at this speed, since Hoenn was a seven-hour flight from Sinnoh.

 _In fact, I'm sure of it._

His heart was pounding in his chest. It would be the first he'd heard from his family in three days now, and he couldn't wait to see what his mother thought of his first day.

He opened the envelope, remembering that all packages had been inspected prior to being sent to his room. They knew what his mother had written back to him.

 _If this is about any embarrassing childhood stories, I swear I'm going to kill somebody,_ Lance thought angrily. _I just can't believe it._

He read the letter. It had been typed in Comic Sans MS font, and in a hot pink color. That was his mother's favorite color, so that didn't surprise him.

 _I'm glad you're doing okay. Ziplining sounds like it was really fun; I think that the family is probably pretty jealous of you right now!_

 _JP sounds like a very nice man. Tell him thank-you from me. Things like that can really save your life out on the battlefield._

 _We're doing all right here. We just miss you, and wish that you could have come back sooner. However, we understand that you feel a sense of duty to the nation of Sinnoh, that you need to help defend them. Just know that you always have a home with us._

 _Love, your mother._

Lance was tearing up as soon as he finished the letter. Even though he was coming to trust Troy more and more now, he still wasn't comfortable showing too much emotion around his roommate. That could only end up embarrassing him, and that wasn't what he wanted.

He was beginning to wonder if reading the letter had been healthy for him. It had certainly made him feel more homesick than he had been, and homesickness would only make his current reality worse.

"Morning, Lance" Troy said groggily. The other Lucario was just waking up, and he sounded almost as though he hadn't gotten too much sleep. He certainly still seemed tired.

"Morning, Troy" Lance replied. "How's it going?"

"It's going well, thanks".

"Glad to hear it" the Lucario boy said. "I wonder what we're going to do today".

"I don't know. You probably have a different schedule than me, though" Troy replied. "I mean, I've been here longer than you".

Lance nodded. "That would only make sense".

As soon as he was no longer speaking to Troy, however, Lance thought about some other things.

It was his third full day at the academy. He wondered how long it would be until the days started blending together, until each day felt just the same as the previous one. How long until he lost track of time?

 _Hopefully never,_ Lance thought. _I value my sanity._

He knew that, as long as he continued to value his sanity, he couldn't afford to become numb to what was being done to him. He thought back to how he'd felt, while ziplining, that they were trying to make him fearless...but maybe being fearless wasn't such a good thing.

 _If they make me fearless, they can coerce me into doing ever more dangerous things. That must be their goal; to turn us all into mindless soldiers for their cause._

The very thought of that sent chills down Lance's spine. He didn't want to become just a pawn, just a piece in their game.

 _I don't want to be owned by either the Hoenn Army or the Skylock Empire,_ he thought. _I just want to be Lance Grant. I have autonomy over my own self. That's how it should be, honestly._

As he walked into the dining hall, he saw that they were serving fruit salad and a bagel to each recruit. The recruits were all speaking to each other, and the mood seemed lively, for the most part.

 _They don't know. And, if the powers that be get their way, they will NEVER know. How long until they all become brainwashed?_

 _How long until_ I _become brainwashed?_

That was on Lance's mind during the whole of breakfast. He didn't like perfectly good food to be ruined by the fact that he was so worried, but that happened nonetheless.

At one point, he caught Claire's eye. The Zoroark girl barely acknowledged him, however, stabbing a chunk of watermelon and stuffing it in her mouth at that moment.

As soon as breakfast was over, Lance got in line once more to be tattooed with his schedule. He wondered what the "special" afternoon activity would be; it had been ziplining the first day, and being hunted the second.

As it turned out, there was none; he simply had more Aquatics after lunch.

 _Well, if this makes me into a lifeguard,_ he thought, _then so be it. I'm sure that I'll be fully trained in CPR and all that jazz by the time I graduate from this academy._

He didn't want to think about his graduation; it seemed like one of those scary events in the future, like an appointment one had been dreading for weeks. As soon as he graduated, he'd be involved in combat...or would he?

 _Don't think about that now._

* * *

As the days passed, however, Lance did feel as though he was becoming more numb to the whole process of being trained. His muscles had ached on the third day, and even into the fourth, as a result of the second day.

The aches had been cumulative, and hadn't fully caught up with him until day 4. That day, he'd had a tough time getting out of bed, just because he'd been so exhausted and sore.

However, on the eighth day he was at the academy, something happened that changed everything.

He'd gone to sit next to Troy for breakfast. As soon as he took his seat, however, his roommate said something that made Lance worry.

"Remember how I told you that it was hell after the first week?" he asked him.

"How could I forget?" Lance replied.

"Well, I wasn't kidding. You're going to wish that you never enrolled. I hope that you are happy with your decision now, because you sure won't be by the end of the _second_ week".

 _Thanks a lot, Troy,_ he thought, but didn't say. _Just when I was starting to enjoy this place._

Of course, "enjoyment" was a little bit of a stretch. There was no doubt that he liked this place more than he had at the beginning, and that he'd developed more of a camaraderie with the other recruits, like Brad and Buck.

However, that in itself caused him some consternation. If they were indeed trying to brainwash all of them, creating a feeling of brotherhood between all of the recruits was one way that they might be trying to go about it.

It had been quite a week at the academy. Even though he hadn't been ziplining since the time last week, the memory was still fresh in his mind. This, despite the fact that he was being pushed to what felt like his limits here.

On day 8, he'd woken up feeling sore from the previous day. He'd had a weightlifting lesson, which was one thing that he hadn't been good at as a human. He might have been a bigger guy, but he wasn't particularly strong, and had little practice with weights.

If today was going to be far worse than yesterday...he didn't even want to think about it. Unfortunately, he was going to be forced to soon enough.

After Lance finished his breakfast, all of the recruits lined up to be tattooed with their daily schedule. It might have been a normal ritual, something that was done every day, but it caused an extra level of anxiety for the Lucario boy today.

Finally, he reached the front of the line. Today, the ink was the color #81C41C, which turned out to be a lime green color. It didn't show up as easily on his arm, so he had to squint a little to make out the words.

This time, only one activity was listed, making Lance feel a bit uneasy. Was this going to be his first day on the front lines?

 _Report to the Hub immediately -_ what would that end up being? He could only guess that it must have been some sort of expedition, which didn't make him feel any better. If anything, it made him feel more nervous; he didn't have any idea where they would go, or what they would do.

Nonetheless, he did as he was told. He went into the Hub, where ten other recruits were standing. He'd been towards the back of the line for the tattoo, so he assumed that most, if not all, of those going on this trip were present already.

There was Brad, Matt, Freddie, a Glaceon, a Leafeon, a Pikachu, another Lucario, a tall young man with a slight beard, a somewhat shorter young man with glasses, and a young woman with flowing light brown hair who reminded Lance of his own sister, Michaela.

 _Michaela._ He hadn't seen his own sister in a week, not since he had left for this place. And he might never see her again.

Lance didn't believe in an afterlife, that he would be reunited with his deceased relatives once he too had died. He was pretty sure that, once you were gone, you didn't come back, and you didn't experience anything else.

 _This makes it even worse,_ he thought. _I certainly wish that I hadn't done this now. Unfortunately, it's not like I can change the decisions I have made._

It wasn't long until an elderly man walked into the dining hall, one that Lance had never seen before.

For such an old man, probably in his seventies, he looked to be in extremely good shape. He was smiling as he looked at the group of recruits.

"Ah. We have the famous Lance Grant in this group. That makes it even better".

In the beginning, Lance had been getting lots of acknowledgement for being famous. At this point, however, it had been a while since that had happened. For the most part, they seemed to see him as just another recruit now, which was just fine with him.

"All right" the man said. "My name is Mr. Cheshire, and I am the swamp hike coordinator here. That is correct, we are going to do the swamp hike today".

The bearded boy groaned audibly.

 _Clearly, he dreads the swamp hike. I mean, I'm dreading it as well. I don't really want to do this, but I have to. That's just the way it goes here, I guess._

"Let's see...do we have Brad?"

"Present" said the Blaziken.

The people and Pokemon listed above were given names. They were Matt, Freddie, Gregory, Leon, Pika, Jason, Jacob, Mike, and Izzy, respectively. Finally, Lance's name was called, and he responded that he was indeed present.

 _This is going to be fun,_ he thought bitterly. _I can't wait to hike through the swamp; I hope there aren't a ton of diseases there._

In his previous life, back in Sinnoh, Lance had had a reputation as being afraid of getting sick. Whenever someone sneezed, he instinctively flinched away, afraid of catching germs from the other person.

Was that insensitive? Yes, very much so. But he just couldn't help it.

"All right" said Mr. Cheshire. "Follow me down the tunnels to our garage. That's where the van is that will take us to the beach before the swamp. I will warn you of one thing".

"What is that?" Jacob asked.

"This is going to be brutal" Mr. Cheshire told them. "I'm being completely serious here. For many people, this is what they say is the worst part about training. However, I do believe that you guys are tough enough to handle it".

 _Troy wasn't kidding,_ Lance thought. _This is going to be hell, this week is._

"All ready? Okay, let's go".

Mr. Cheshire led them out of the Hub and down another series of tunnels. At this point, the place was starting to seem like less of a complete and total maze to the Lucario boy, but he was learning more and more about this place every day. He imagined that there were still many, many passages he still had no clue about.

Eventually, they ended up in an area that smelled unclean. There was no particular odor there that was permeating everything; it just smelled impure, probably as a result of being underground.

 _But why does it smell so weird here, when it doesn't smell that way in the rest of the academy?_ , Lance wondered.

His aura didn't seem to be picking up anything evil, so it wasn't actively malevolent. There was just something there…

 _Ah, it's probably nothing. Just a garage._

Indeed, they were in the garage now. It was darker than the passageway that they had just been in, and there was a fine layer of dust all over the place. Somewhere in the room, someone sneezed, although it was difficult to tell whom it was.

"Here's the van" said Mr. Cheshire. "Like all of our ground vehicles, this one's windows black out whenever recruits are riding in it. All of you know why".

Indeed, that was something that worried Lance. How likely was it that he'd eventually be captured by the enemy, and they'd torture him to try and get the information out of him?

The Lucario boy shivered, partly because it was chilly in the garage compared to the hallway adjacent to it. He'd heard accounts of waterboarding from those who had participated in it as part of a simulation of torture. It did not sound enjoyable, and he sure as hell didn't want to be subjected to it.

All of the recruits piled into the van. Lance sat between Mike and Jacob, both humans. While sitting next to both of them, he felt self-conscious about the fact that he had once been one of them, also a human.

 _Don't worry about it,_ he told himself. _They already know, and they don't seem to judge you for it. Put a sock in it._

The van backed out of the garage once Mr. Cheshire was in the driver's seat. Somehow, he was still able to see where they were going.

The ride lasted thirty minutes that were simultaneously boring and nerve-wracking. During that time, Lance tried to think about other things, but he was always taken back to thoughts of home. Pleasant memories, like the time he would spend with Michaela there, as well as those friends at school that he did have.

 _And that's all gone now,_ he thought. _It's all gone, and I can never get it back._

Those weren't the most comforting thoughts, and the Lucario boy was forced to hold back tears as the van continued to travel through the jungle. He had no idea if they were even in the jungle anymore - it was very possible indeed that they were heading towards the ocean now.

 _Is the swamp near the ocean?,_ Lance wondered. _It would be, right? But wasn't there a swamp in the jungle, above the academy?_

As unpleasant as thoughts of what he'd be doing today were, it was less pleasant still to dwell on memories of the past. Specifically, being hunted last week.

 _You have to get over it,_ he told himself.

Eventually, the van stopped, and Mr. Cheshire instructed them all to get out. Once that had happened, Lance was able to see what the area looked like.

They were now standing next to a thin, sandy beach, which was adjacent to more jungle. Except that the jungle's trees were sitting in water that was the color of taupe. Really, it looked disgusting.

Mangrove trees of various heights were in the swamp as well, and Lance wished he could have climbed to the top of the tallest one. He hadn't been able to see an aerial view of any of Hoenn since the time they'd gone ziplining, and it had already been a week since then.

"All right" Mr. Cheshire said. "Everyone, get your life jackets and get into a kayak. This swamp's water is pretty hard to maneuver through, so it's going to take a _lot_ of arm strength. I brought sandwiches for lunch, which we'll have midway through".

Jacob raised his hand. "Any hand sanitizer with you?"

Their guide laughed. "Of course not, Jacob, don't be silly. I didn't bring any hand sanitizer".

 _They're really being brutal on us._

Lined up on the beach were twelve single kayaks, positioned so that they were above the high tide line, which was clearly visible in the sand. They all looked very heavy, and Lance sincerely hoped that they wouldn't have to make any portages.

"Get in the boats and start paddling away. I'll lead the way".

Lance started pushing the kayak towards the water. Once it had fallen in, he hopped inside it and started paddling.

* * *

At first, it felt amazing to be on the water. There was a tiny bit of a breeze, and he could tell that they were fairly close to the ocean.

That had been one of his favorite places back in Sinnoh. He'd used to go on vacations to the shore with his family, and he'd always had a great time on his father's boat. Now, he was kayaking with ten fellow recruits.

However, the joy was short-lived.

Almost as soon as they entered the deeper part of the swamp, where the bottom was no longer visible, Lance became aware of just how hot it was.

It had been a good six days since he'd been under the hot Hoenn sun before. He'd never before thought that it could get any hotter than that, but, if it had been forty degrees Celsius last time, he was willing to bet that it was forty-five this time.

 _I'd really rather swim this route,_ Lance said to himself. _That is, if this wasn't the swamp. I have no idea what's in this water._

Every time he pushed back with his paddle, some sort of debris ended up on it. It wasn't like kayaking out on the ocean or in a lake - this was very dirty water indeed, and it felt heavier than normal, having to push it out of the way.

For the most part, Lance remained in the middle of the pack. He didn't want to draw too much attention to himself, so this was a perfect place to be, or at least he thought so.

"Notice the mangrove trees here; they are very, very old" Mr. Cheshire said. "Many of them are dying, because the swamp has resulted in them not having enough oxygen in their roots. You see, the swamp water is an invasive species".

 _Drain that swamp, then,_ Lance thought, wondering if he'd heard that phrase before. _I really hate it here._

"Soon we'll be in the middle of the forest, and that's when the bugs are going to start coming out. If any of you fall out, it's important to get back into the boat immediately, and we really don't want that to happen".

Lance didn't ask why. He was wearing a life jacket, as was everyone else, and, besides, he was a pretty strong swimmer. He suspected there was something that Mr. Cheshire wasn't telling them, but he didn't really care what it was. He didn't want to be in that water anyway.

They paddled for what must have been about half an hour through the thin groves of mangrove trees. Then…

"We're in the real forest now".

Here, the trees grew taller, blocking out the sun. That didn't make the heat much more tolerable, however, but at least they no longer felt as though their brains were being fried.

The weather was extremely muggy, and Lance was soaked in sweat before long. Indeed, he must have started sweating at the very beginning, but he hadn't been noticing, just liking being on the water.

Lance soon got a closer look at many of the trees; they indeed appeared to be frail and weak. It might have been from lack of oxygen, but it also appeared as though a lack of sunlight might have hurt the lower ones.

 _Kids, remember your Vitamin D._

It was rather sad, really, in a way. The trees were quite beautiful. At least, they would have been if they were not mixed with…

 _Mosquitoes. Oh, how I hate the pesky little things._

It was true; they could be quite nasty, and they were swarming Lance every chance they seemed to get. He wasn't having a good time at all.

"This water can be like quicksand, since there is a great degree of silt in it" Mr. Cheshire told them. "It's not quite as effective, but, just to be safe, it's advisable to continue paddling forward, and you won't sink. Those life jackets still come in very handy".

"Glad to know that" Brad said. The Blaziken had looked slightly nervous during the talk.

The guide turned around and looked severely at Brad. "Next time, speak only when directly addressed. Got that?"

The Blaziken nodded, although he didn't look too happy about it".

"Good" Mr. Cheshire replied. "Because, trust me, you are going to need all of your energy for paddling; better not to talk, if I am being completely honest with you people".

Lance gritted his teeth. The old man's reedy voice was starting to get on his nerves a little. At the same time, however, he couldn't help admiring the guy.

 _He has to be at least seventy. He MUST be at least seventy. How the hell does he have all of this strength and energy?_

Somehow, Lance had a feeling that there wasn't a benign answer to that question. Something was going on that was very fishy indeed.

* * *

Claire, meanwhile, was in the middle of Weaponry, trying to figure out how to shoot the middle of the target.

Really, she wasn't that great of a shot. Back at home, she had never had much practice. Summer camp, when she was younger, had been her only opportunity to try.

Now, however, she had to master some sort of skill with weapons, because her life would depend on it eventually.

She pulled back the bowstring and let it fly.

The arrow stuck itself near the edge of the yellow section of the target, which was a great relief. Claire had been afraid that she would embarrass herself, but she hadn't; in fact, she had done incredibly well. She was getting better and better at this every day.

"Nice, Claire!" exclaimed the Braixen behind her.

The Zoroark girl turned around to find that the Braixen had been smiling, either because she was impressed with Claire or because she was happy that her turn was next.

"Thanks...what was your name again?"

"Sais" ( _SYE-ISS)._

"Nice. It's your turn now".

Claire went to the back of the line and watched Sais shoot. She was also a pretty good shot, achieving either the red or yellow sections of the target every time.

 _I wonder how Lance is doing right now,_ Claire found herself thinking.

She had a hard time thinking that it was anything pleasant that he was doing. After all, he was, as far as she knew, going on a hike through the swamp.

 _That sounds like a lot of fun,_ she thought sarcastically. She wasn't a particular fan of swamps. While running around in the jungle the other day, being hunted, she had encountered a patch of swampy water, which was absolutely disgusting.

The unpleasant memories of that day came rushing back to her. As she was preparing to get her next turn with the bow and arrow, she kept wondering how she had made it through that day. It had certainly been hellish.

 _Oh, well, at least I got through it,_ she told herself. _That's what matters, after all._

Indeed, it was the only thing that mattered. She was okay now, and that was the most important thing.

 _I hope Lance is okay._

Lance Grant seemed pretty antisocial to her, but she could tell that he had a big heart underneath. Certainly, he wasn't an unpleasant person to be around.

She found herself thinking, _I really do care about him. I don't know if I can say that I love him, but I think there might be something there between us. I really think he's a cool guy._

 _Am I seriously thinking that?_

She slapped herself in the face. She couldn't dwell on that right now. For now, she had to focus on the task at hand, which was practicing with the bow and arrow.

 _Lance, wherever you are...good luck._

* * *

 **EeveeAbbyYT asks: What is your favorite dragon type?**

 **SnowLucario answers: That would have to be Dragonite. He's just so cute.**

 **If you have a question for me, leave it in your review. I'll see you guys next time.**


	21. Lost

**I found this chapter extremely fun (and funny) to write. I think you'll find it amusing as well, because I included some EarthBound references. It's been a couple years since I played that game on the Wii U Virtual Console, but it has stuck with me. I'm picturing this swamp area as looking much like Deep Darkness from that game.**

 **In other news, we are now at over 75,000 words in this story. Sooner or later, the word count will be in the sextuple digits, and that'll be pretty cool. Enjoy this slightly shorter chapter.**

* * *

"Here comes land up ahead" said Mr. Cheshire.

Lance had been paddling for so long that it felt as though his arms were about to fall off. By his own estimation, it had been a couple of hours, during which time he'd no doubt gotten bitten by about a million mosquitoes.

The hot Hoenn sun had only gotten hotter, too. It really did feel as though his skull was going to fry eventually, which was a very disturbing mental image that he would really rather not picture.

Based on that, he was fairly excited when he learned that there would be land in the near future. He was getting rather sick of all of this swamp.

It wasn't easy to see, but he could tell, far in the distance, that there was a patch that looked more solid than the rest of the swamp, and was a slightly lighter brown color. From this distance, it looked nearly indistinguishable from the swamp.

 _I hope it's not quicksand,_ Lance thought. _Wouldn't they keep us away from the quicksand, for our own safety?_

Almost immediately, it was as though Arceus spoke to him, mocking him for being so naive. _LOL, NOOB!_

 _Of course not. Since when did they prioritize our safety here? Next thing I know, they'll be subjecting us to tickle torture._

He shivered at the thought, despite the extremely hot day.

Eventually, they hit land. The sand looked fairly wet, but not nearly as wet as the rest of the swamp.

"We have a portage to make" their guide told them. "It's about a mile on foot to get to the other end of this sandbar. It's important to keep moving, because this is a mild form of quicksand here".

"Quicksand?" Brad piped up, sounding very different from his usual tough, masculine voice.

"Yes", Mr. Cheshire replied. "Quicksand. Defined as, 'loose wet sand that yields easily to pressure and sucks in anything resting on or falling into it'. That's what I am talking about". He spoke as though the Blaziken were in kindergarten.

"Great" Matt said. "I hope we don't sink".

"You won't, as long as you keep moving" Lance spoke up. Almost immediately, he got several glares.

 _Hey, I was just trying to reassure him,_ he mentally said to the others. _It's not as though I did any harm just now._

"All right" Mr. Cheshire said. "Follow me, and carry your kayaks. Each recruit must carry their own kayak, nobody can carry two or zero. Got that?"

After everybody else nodded, Lance got out of his boat and stepped into the sand. Instantly, it sucked him down a few inches.

 _Mr. Cheshire wasn't kidding. This is bona fide quicksand._

Their guide led the way along the sandbar, with almost everybody else using his footsteps as guides for where it was okay to step and where it was not.

Lance had experienced minor quicksand on the beach where they had vacationed in Sinnoh. That could suck down one's feet a few inches, but, unless you were specifically trying to, you couldn't sink very deep there.

This was very much different; every step felt like a herculean effort. Lance quickly became short of breath, and the heat of the day certainly didn't help.

In addition, the kayak wasn't much lighter than it looked. Carrying it was also a difficult task, as it was very unwieldy in addition to being heavy. He had to be careful not to slam it into anybody else's head.

"This swamp is full of Zap Eels and Demonic Petunias" said their guide, sounding as though he had gone off his rocker. Certainly, those names seemed very interesting. "You want to avoid them at all costs, as they can be very dangerous".

 _I don't doubt it. With names like "Zap Eel" and "Demonic Petunia", I can only imagine._

As it turned out, it wasn't too hard to stay above the sand, as long as one kept moving. Lance's joints began hurting before long from the continued effort of having to lift his legs out of the muck.

With every step the others made, their feet made shallow imprints, before the sand rebounded and morphed back into its previous shape. Lance didn't want to look backwards, for fear of losing his balance and falling into the sand, but he could only assume that his footsteps were doing the same.

He supposed that the various mangrove trees were pretty enough, but it was eerie in another way. Lance could only imagine all of the diseases that were lurking in the depths of the swamp.

 _I got vaccinated against them,_ he thought. _I know that the flu shot takes two weeks to build full protection...does this take that long? If so, that would mean that I don't have full protection against these diseases, either._

"We're halfway to the other side of the sandbar" said Mr. Cheshire.

By now, Lance was panting, gasping for air, even though he hadn't been underwater at all. It felt as though he were walking uphill, with all the effort it took to keep moving. Nonetheless, he kept on the move, following Mr. Cheshire and the other recruits, because he knew the consequences of stopping.

The second half of the portage felt interminable. The kayak felt as though it weighed a ton, with the oar adding seemingly another hundredweight. The sun was beating down with a vengeance.

Finally, they reached the other side of the sandbar. "This part has a little less quicksand, so you won't sink downwards. I'll show you guys the place to sit so that you can eat without worrying about sinking".

Mr. Cheshire led them to a part of the sandbar that looked like a usual white sand beach. It looked a lot more solid than the rest of the area.

"I brought peanut butter and jelly for each of you, as well as an apple for each person. You guys need to keep up your strength, because there's going to be a lot more ahead. We'll soon end up in the most dangerous part of the forest".

 _The most dangerous part of the forest._

As soon as he had heard those words, Lance had already decided that he wanted nothing to do with that. Unfortunately, he had made his bed, and now he would have to lie in it.

Their guide passed around the sandwiches, and the Lucario boy took his, trying to eat it slowly. It tasted heavenly, especially since he hadn't had any drinks of water. Mr. Cheshire also passed around water bottles, since it was important to stay hydrated when you were out here.

"From here on out, this place is kind of a maze. There are a lot of dead ends, where there'll be nothing but a lot of trees. So it's imperative that you guys follow me everywhere we go. Got that?"

 _He really seems to use those two words a lot,_ Lance realized. _Is there any particular reason for that?_

From this spot, the sun had a nearly direct angle to shine on the sand. There weren't that many trees too close to this part of the sandbar, so it felt hotter than ever, especially since it was now at least midday.

"You'll have to fight in some environments like this, once you're actually in combat" Mr. Cheshire told them. "It's important that you are familiar with this environment".

Lance was beginning to grow irritated with everything that the old man was telling them; it seemed like a lot of platitudes about things that might not end up being very important in the long term.

It was a relief when he announced that lunch was over, and they could get back in their kayaks. The Lucario boy pushed his to the edge of the water, and, when Mr. Cheshire gave them the all-clear, hopped in.

* * *

This part of the swamp did indeed seem more like a maze. The trees were packed more closely together, meaning that you had to be extremely careful not to hit any. What was more, the water looked dirtier and dirtier, and Lance was wondering if it was poisonous.

 _I don't want to fall in anyway, but now I REALLY don't want to fall in,_ Lance thought. _I'd probably never get the smell out of my fur for a month. Claire would refuse to kiss me for a year._

 _Like she'd ever kiss you anyway,_ replied another part of his mind.

 _She would,_ Lance said, _if I get through this swamp hike. It's going to be quite miserable, for sure._

He decided that he would try and exercise more restraint in terms of the thoughts he was having. It wasn't as though it would be easy; he fully expected it to be quite a long, hard slog to figure out how he could do that.

In having those thoughts, Lance realized that he had fallen well behind the rest of the group. They were barely visible, but it appeared that they were going in a single-file line in order to negotiate a gap they had found in the trees.

 _Mr. Cheshire's probably really mad at me for not paddling as hard as I should have,_ he realized. _I can't afford to fall too far behind them, or I might lose track._

Paddling furiously, he tried to make up the distance. He didn't think it would be that hard - after all, he could _see_ where they were. He wasn't going to fall any further behind.

But then the disaster struck.

Before he had transformed into a Lucario mysteriously, Lance had been taking driving lessons, since he had his learner's permit, and had logged roughly three hours of practice. One thing he had been taught was to look _around_ objects in his way, not _away_ from them, that he should hit the space rather than avoid the car.

This lesson applied when one was paddling a kayak, too. It was more important to focus on hitting the space in the water rather than avoiding the-

 _BANG! SPLASH!_

Lance, having been moving quite quickly through the murky water, had crashed head-on into a mangrove tree. The shock caused the boat to capsize, and Lance fell into the swamp.

Thanks to the life jacket he was wearing, he didn't sink too far before he kicked his way to the surface. It was impossible to tell how deep the water was, only that it was much deeper than his height (which was six feet, two and a half inches tall).

Almost immediately, he began to panic. He was able to right the kayak, but, when it came time to climb back into it, he either used too little strength or too much.

The result of using too little strength was that he wouldn't be able to raise himself back into the kayak, while the result of using too much was that he accidentally turned the boat back over.

He hoped that someone, surely, would notice that he'd fallen in, and that one of them would come back and help him. However, no help was forthcoming, and Lance began to fear for his life.

He'd heard of Demonic Petunias and Zap Eels from Mr. Cheshire, but he hadn't thought that they really existed. Now, he couldn't be sure. There could be any number of creatures stalking him right now, wondering what those flailing Lucario legs tasted like.

 _I've got to get away from here,_ Lance thought. _Somewhere that's shallow enough that I can climb back into my boat, because I need some ground to push off of._

 _I have an idea._

Lance hated the idea. However, it sounded like the best thing to do in order to get back into the boat.

The first thing he did was to take off his life jacket. That step would be necessary for what he was planning on doing next.

However, he was hit with a nasty surprise when a spear rose out of the water and hoisted the life jacket away from him. The spear moved, taking the PFD away with it.

Lance's first thought wasn't, _Great, I'm without a life jacket._

It was, _Oh shit, I'm doomed._

Indeed, it sure felt that way. He was stuck in the middle of a swamp that probably had all sorts of parasites and creatures all throughout it. And clearly, one of them was wielding a spear.

He imagined himself as speared Lance, served over a fire for dinner, with a side of fries. That wasn't an attractive proposal for him, and he shuddered at the thought.

Anyway...he now no longer had the life jacket. He knew that Lucario had pretty good underwater vision, so he would use that to his advantage.

Lance shuddered at the thought of what he was about to do. The thought of doing so almost made him want to get speared by whatever that was that doing the spearing.

Nonetheless, he did it anyway, taking a deep breath and then ducking his head underneath the water. He soon realized that that wasn't going to work, forcing himself back to the surface.

Eventually, he decided that he was going to dive down head-first. He did that and started swimming towards the bottom.

He'd read somewhere that Lucario could hold their breath underwater for a longer period of time than humans could. How much longer, that he wasn't sure of.

The plan was to reach the bottom of the swamp and then use his legs to push himself back up. It was a big bet, but he didn't see any other options, not unless he wanted to swim alongside his kayak until he found a place that was shallower.

Underwater, visibility wasn't great, although he was fairly sure that the depth was thirteen feet or so, roughly twice his height, or about the depth of the deep end at the local swimming pool. The sun shone through only weakly.

As soon as Lance's foot touched the bottom, it seemed to sink into it, and it became clear that this plan wasn't going to work as intended. He'd been intending to push off the swamp's floor, but it was too squishy to push off of.

Lance swam back to the surface, which wasn't much easier than swimming downwards. Something about this water felt heavier than usual, harder to maneuver around in. He had to _fight_ to get there.

Gasping, he reached the surface of the water once more. Panting for air, he felt the strong southern sun dry off his aura sensing organs almost immediately. It had a drying effect even though it was extremely humid.

It was a relief to be back where he could breathe, but he had to put it all into perspective. He was now alone, stuck in the water, unable to get back into his boat. What was more, he had no idea where the other members of his group were.

 _I'm well and truly alone,_ he realized. _I'm going to have a hard time catching up with them now. I don't even know which way they went!_

Suddenly, he felt something slice into his left foot. He could tell instinctively that the cut wasn't deep, and it wasn't going to bleed very much; however, it was still very painful.

 _Was that a spear? Or something else?_

 _Whatever the case, I had better get out of here and back into the kayak!_

After swimming down and going back up for air, Lance didn't have the strength to get back in his kayak. However, he knew that blood attracted all sorts of animals, who would now be wondering what a Lucario's leg tasted like.

Holding on to the edge of the boat, Lance swam towards a grove of trees. He figured that, if there were trees, it was more likely that the water was shallow enough for him to stand. Once he was back in his kayak, he'd be able to move around a lot more, perhaps able to find his way back to the rest of the group.

Eventually, he was able to touch the bottom while keeping his head above the water. Just to make sure that he'd be able to climb back in, he waded until he was only waist deep in the swamp. Then, when he was convinced that he would be able to get back in, he went for it.

Pulling himself back into the kayak, Lance caught his breath once more. He noticed that his legs were very dirty indeed; the water had had more debris in it than even he had thought.

 _They can't have gone too far,_ he thought. _If I paddle really quickly, I might catch up with them._

But then he remembered that he had no idea which direction they had gone, or how long it had been since he'd fallen in and lost the group. It was probably only ten or fifteen minutes; it couldn't have been too long.

 _That's still more than enough time for them to be irretrievably far away from me,_ Lance's mind told him.

Looking around, he couldn't tell where the others had gone, so he simply decided to force his way through these thickets of trees. He had to be careful not to crash into any of them, or else he might end up taking another unplanned swim.

Eventually, he reached another sandbar. Seeing that there was no other way around it that didn't require a good fifteen minutes of weaving around trees, he decided that he was going to make a portage here.

As he was walking across the sandbar, he stubbed his toe on something. Giving a brief yelp of pain, he dropped the kayak, wondering what the hell _that_ had been.

It was an old-fashioned radio, just lying there, in the middle of the swamp.

 _What the fuck is that doing here?,_ Lance wanted to yell. Indeed, it might have been a good idea _for_ him to yell, because, if the group was anywhere nearby, they might hear him and rescue him from this nightmare.

The radio belted out, " _And now, for today's greatest hits, Rucka Rucka Ali's "I Can Do Whatever I'm White". Enjoy"._

"SHUT UP!" Lance yelled. The sound of the radio was extremely annoying; all he wanted to hear was the chirping of crickets, or maybe the sounds of the group coming here to save him.

As the radio belted out lyrics about being in Detroit and running red lights, Lance resisted the urge to cover his ears. He knew that, if he did, he might not hear the sounds that he needed to hear in order to avoid something dangerous.

 _There are many dangerous swamp creatures about,_ Lance reminded himself. _If covering my ears means having to listen to some Rucka tunes, so be it. I don't mind Rucka, anyway._

Soon enough, a spear rose out of the wet sand.

 _Ah, fuck. I'm not safe here._

A teal green fish that appeared to be walking on its own two feet appeared, looking at Lance with an absolutely murderous expression.

"Who are you?" the Lucario boy asked. He wondered if that wasn't the best thing to ask this fish; he didn't want to rile up a being with a spear in hand.

"I am a Manly Fish" replied the fish.

Lance couldn't help but laugh, in spite of the fact that a fish was pointing a spear directly at his heart. "That's your name? Manly Fish?"

"Sure is" the fish replied. "I am a Manly Fish, and, if you can't prove your manliness to me, you should suffer the consequences".

Lance's heart stopped. "What are those consequences?"

"You'll have to wait and see. One thing is for sure; you won't get out of this swamp too easily. Oh, no".

After he stuck his tongue out at Lance, the Manly Fish disappeared below the sand once again, leaving Lance to wonder exactly what was going on.

 _This is the most ridiculous place I've ever been,_ he thought. _There's an old radio playing Rucka tunes, Manly Fish...what the hell is up with this place?_

He continued his portage across the sandbar until he reached the other side. Once there, he paddled quickly once more, but more carefully this time. He didn't want to end up falling in again.

The heat was a little less intense now, thanks to the fact that the forest was thicker. However, Lance had no doubt that he was going to be guzzling water like a camel once he got back to the academy; he was feeling extremely thirsty after the swim and all that paddling and walking.

He didn't have any encounters with Zap Eels or Demonic Petunias here, which he was very grateful for. In his current state, feeling quite exhausted, he didn't think he would have been any match for them.

Also, now that he was out of the water, his wound was smarting a great deal. It wasn't bleeding, not that much, but he knew that it could easily get infected in the jungle. That was a far greater concern.

 _I'll get it taken care of once I get back there,_ he told himself. _It'll be fine. All of this is going to be okay eventually._

It was hard to convince himself of this when he was in the middle of the swamp, completely alone.

But, as it would turn out, he wasn't alone for much longer.

After another hour of paddling, Lance thought he spotted a group of other canoes. They were paddling towards him.

 _No way,_ he thought. _It must be a mirage. I'm just so tired and dehydrated that I'm seeing things. It's not like they're really coming for me...are they? Did I find them?_

He saw a Blaziken and a Machamp paddling in his direction. "Lance!" he heard the Blaziken yell.

It was then that he realized that it wasn't just any Blaziken. It was _Brad_ who was calling for him.

 _I found them again!_

"You're okay!" Brad exclaimed. "Guys, he's all right! We found him!"

Almost immediately, a feeling of utmost jubilation came over the Lucario boy. Yes, he had been separated from the others, but it had all worked out okay. He'd found his way to meeting them again.

"But you're all wet…" Matt said. "Did you fall in, Lance?"

Lance nodded sheepishly, a little embarrassed to admit it. "Yep. I did" he replied, wanting to avoid the subject".

Once the two of them got closer, Brad was able to look at Lance a little more clearly. He saw that there was a large amount of dirty swamp water stuck to his fur, as well as to his face.

"You're going to want a shower when you get back".

* * *

 **I didn't get any questions on the last chapter, so I'll leave it at this. Looking forward to seeing what you guys think!**


	22. The First Move

**This is a transition chapter, so a little shorter than usual. However, some important events do take place, and it was necessary to write it.**

 **I hope you guys enjoy it.**

* * *

Once Lance was back at the academy, it was well past four in the afternoon. The trip had taken longer than anyone had expected, mainly because, as it turned out, the others had been looking for Lance the whole time.

The Lucario boy only wished that they could have made the very simple assumption that he might have been behind the others. Or perhaps they had been doing so.

As soon as Lance got back, with a great deal of muddy water still stuck to him, he was directed to the hospital wing. There, one of the Chansey there told him to get into an examination room.

He sat down on the paper that doctors put on examination tables before a physical. Lance stayed mostly silent as the nurse cleaned his wound, although it wasn't easy. The type of alcohol she used caused it to sting and burn painfully, and he had to bite on his tongue in order to stop it, which, of course, caused more pain.

As soon as the wound had been cleaned, the nurse (a human) said, "I'll tell you something, Lance Grant. Swamp water can hold all kinds of diseases. Some of them you were vaccinated against when you first came here, but, for many of them, there is no known inoculation. Therefore, I am going to have to give you a dose of an antibiotic".

"Okay" the Lucario boy said numbly. Really, it had been an exhausting, terrifying day, and he didn't care too much about anything anymore. All he wanted was to eat dinner, preferably a large, hearty meal, and then go to bed and sleep off the aches in his muscles. He'd been paddling so much, in such hot weather, that he couldn't believe it.

He'd expected that he'd have to take a couple of pills. Instead, the woman said, "I'll get the needle ready. It's going to be injected right into your ankle, so as to fight the possible infection the most effectively. Got that?"

Lance nodded. He hadn't been expecting that, but he wasn't afraid of needles, so it shouldn't be a problem. That said, he'd never had to get a needle in his ankle, at least not that he could remember.

After disinfecting the area a little more, the nurse jammed the syringe into Lance's ankle.

And, almost immediately, Lance felt the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life. Whatever that spear had contained, it had caused his fur to become very inflamed, and, what was more, he was in a _ton_ of pain.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to silence the fire that was raging inside of him. It didn't work, and he let out a five-second howl of agony.

The nurse frowned. "Unfortunately, that is quite common when one is given an injection into an open wound. It's no matter, however; I'll just bandage up, and you can go rinse off in the shower. How does that sound?"

Lance hadn't realized it until now, but he smelled pretty bad. This was, of course, almost certainly a result of having fallen into the swamp. The reason he'd had to sit on the sheet, then, was probably because of how disgusting he was, with mud and muddy water all over his fur.

The Lucario boy walked into the shower stall and took the longest, hottest shower of his life. It took five scrubs in order to get all of the muck out of his fur, and it would probably take absolutely forever to dry off as well. Normally, he was very fast at showering, but this time was different.

Once he was out, he thanked the nurse who had fixed up his wound and headed back to his dorm room. This was only to find out that Troy had left there.

 _Of course,_ he thought. _It's almost dinnertime. Or, it is time for dinner right now. I don't know what time it is._

Still, that could only have been the explanation; normally, there was a shower hour before dinner.

Thinking about Troy, something he hadn't done for most of that day, led him to another thought, one that was highly unpleasant.

As Lance walked down the hallway towards dinner, it occurred to him that his roommate had indeed been telling the truth. Today had been pretty hellish; on a scale of one to absolute agony, it had definitely been closer to the latter end.

When he sat down next to Claire, the Zoroark girl asked, "How was it? The trip through the swamp, I mean?"

The Lucario boy frowned. "Trust me, you don't want to know. It wasn't fun. Be glad that you didn't have to do it".

Claire looked at Lance with puppy-dog eyes. "Please, Lance. I'm curious".

"Okay, fine. I fell into the swamp".

Claire's eyes widened, and she chuckled. "No wonder you smell so bad".

"Really? Even though that was a couple hours ago?"

She nodded. "If it indeed was a couple of hours ago, you must not have gotten all of it out of your fur. Believe me, it's understandable. But next time you take a swim in the swamp, please don't sit next to me for dinner".

"Okay" Lance replied. He didn't know if Claire was being serious or not, but he decided not to test her. She certainly sounded as though she was being serious.

Lance continued eating his meatball soup. He was still so exhausted from the day that all he wanted to do was get through the meeting and be able to go to bed right afterwards. Of course, he'd have to keep the lights on as long as Troy did, because that was the rule. Both recruits in a room would have to consent to turning the lights off, or else their bedtime would be at 9:15 PM. Which, granted, was earlier than Lance had gone to bed at home in Sinnoh, but he hadn't just gone for a long trip through the swamp when he lived there, either.

In addition to the water he had been provided, he ate the meatball soup very quickly. He hadn't realized just how hungry and thirsty he had been until he had gotten back onto the van to head to the base.

 _Today was absolutely brutal,_ he thought. _In fact, that's probably how I'm going to start my letter tonight._

Over the last week, Lance had received two more letters from his family. He'd learned about how great of a time Michaela and his parents were having there, and how much they were missing him.

The Lucario boy almost wished that he didn't have to write and receive letters. The reason for this was because they only made him more homesick; indeed, he often found his eyes clouding over when he simply read the first sentence.

 _And I'll never see them again,_ he thought despondently as he slurped the last dregs of the meatball soup. _Probably not, at the least._

One could try to think a little more optimistically, but Lance was typically a pessimist, and so it was very difficult for him to do so.

Eventually, the meal ended for everybody, and they headed into the auditorium. By this point, Lance was very familiar with the proceedings; he went through them every evening, and so did everybody else.

Owing to the fact that Claire didn't seem to want to be next to him, he sat next to Brad instead. The Blaziken had been in a quiet conversation with Buck the Ponyta, but they both stopped when Lance sat next to him. Almost immediately, they started giggling quietly.

 _I hope they're not talking about me,_ the Lucario boy thought angrily. _Because, if they are, there is gonna be some serious hell to pay._

"Hello" General Whitefur said from the front of the room, and Lance almost immediately felt a sense of loathing.

Unlike Brad, Buck, and Claire, who had all seemed to forgive the general for having hunted them down, Lance had not forgiven him, probably because he simply wasn't a person to forgive others easily. And he didn't think he'd ever forget something else.

Lance had heard of the saying, _People will forget what you did. People will forget what you said. But people will never forget how you made them feel._ And that, he thought, was a perfect analogy for the situation.

General Whitefur had made him feel panicked, very afraid indeed. And the Lucario boy was extremely angry at him for making him feel that way, so it wasn't likely that he'd ever forgive the general.

 _But, oh well,_ Lance thought. _I suppose that's not really the point of this meeting, for me to forgive him, is it?_

General Whitefur started talking about all of the ordinary things that had been happening that day. For the most part, Lance tuned him out, like he had been doing for the past week.

 _He doesn't deserve my attention,_ he thought bitterly, just the same way he did each and every time General Whitefur took the stage. _He tried to kill all of us, and that is considered LEGAL?_

Of course, he knew that there was probably some legal provision, somewhere, that allowed Whitefur to do that. Even so, it wasn't as though it had been moral at all.

 _We can debate morality later,_ a rational part of his brain said. _It's time to listen to what General Whitefur has to say, because it could be vitally important._

For the most part, it was the same old, same old. However, Whitefur soon said something that got his attention.

"Currently, in terms of diplomacy points, Claire Morrisey is in the lead, with 4,035. Lance Grant is in second, with 3,878".

 _I'm on track to get to go negotiate with the Jungle Queen!,_ he realized with a headrush so great that, if he had stood up, he most likely would have fainted. _I can't believe it._

The idea both excited and terrified him. He sincerely hoped that he'd be able to find a healthy medium between excited and terrified, because he believed that he should have been both.

 _And I am._

"The meeting will take place one week from now. Those who have been chosen will meet me in the Hub that morning, and we will travel to the Jungle Queen's palace. And, trust me, it is very extravagant".

There were several oohs and ahs as the hundreds of recruits filling the hall imagines what the palace might have looked like.

Personally, Lance didn't care. All he knew was that, if the contest ended today, he would have won. And that was a double-edged sword.

After a few more announcements, General Whitefur said, "Okay, guys. The evening meeting has ended. You may leave and head back to your rooms, and I will see you again for this meeting, or, very possibly, for your lessons tomorrow".

As soon as Lance had left the auditorium, he managed to come across Troy. His roommate had somehow managed to find him as well.

"You were right, Troy" Lance said.

The other Lucario looked slightly confused. "What was I right about?"

"The first day of the second week being hell" the Lucario boy replied. "It was hellish today".

"I know" Troy said. "I'm told that you went on the trip through the swamp?"

Lance nodded. "Sure did".

"Man...that's brutal. I remember going on that trip back when I was new here. And yeah, it is hellish. It only gets worse from here on out, though".

That really wasn't what Lance wanted to hear. He wanted to be told that it would get better, that he was going to get used to it eventually, that he would become somewhat numb to it.

But then he remembered how terrified he was of just that outcome.

"That's not what I needed to hear" Lance replied glumly, continuing to walk in the direction of the dormitory.

Once he was back in the room, the Lucario boy collapsed onto his bed. His muscles were quite sore, and, what was more, he still felt pain from the wound on his ankle. Thanks to the nurse's treatment, it was no longer bleeding, but Lance was still hurting.

Eventually, he decided that, as long as he had to stay awake, he might as well write a letter to his family. He figured that it had been long enough since his parents and Michaela had heard from him, and that that shouldn't continue any longer.

Lance took out his mechanical pencil and a piece of computer paper that the academy had provided. And he began to write. On the paper, he wrote the following.

 _Dear Mom, Dad, and Michaela,_

 _My roommate said that, after the second week, training was complete hell. At first, I didn't believe him. Now, however, I am inclined to._

 _Today was brutal. Instead of having lessons, I was told to proceed to the Hub. There, we found out that we'd be paddling kayaks through the swamp near here. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?_

 _Yeah...it wasn't._

 _There were mosquitoes galore there. Not only that, but it was extremely hot out; you should be glad for Sinnoh summers, because Hoenn summers are no joke. One of my friends here, Claire, passed out after a hunting exercise we did._ (He stopped short of telling them his semi-romantic feelings for Claire, or of the fact that hunting meant being hunted). _She had to go to the hospital wing for dehydration; that's how hot it is down here._

 _On top of all that, I fell in at one point. There's nothing to worry about now; I got a dose of antibiotics at the hospital wing to make sure that nothing bad happens in terms of infection. That said, I did get a spear wound to my ankle, which is still hurting, but not going to kill me, thankfully._

 _I'm doing all right, I just miss you every single day, and I hope that there is a chance for me to see you eventually._

 _Love, Lance._

Lance read over the letter five times before folding it and taking it to the appropriate mailbox. By this point, he knew where to go, as a result of having made this trip several times before.

 _How different is it from the beginning? When I had to ask for help as to how to get where I was going? Man, have things changed._

 _And things are going to continue to change, some for the better, but mostly for the worse._

The Lucario boy tried to cancel out the part of his mind that was fear-mongering, but it was proving almost impossible. No matter what, he couldn't get the thought out of his head that this story was going to have an unhappy ending, whether it ended with him getting killed or not.

Some days, Lance was very confused as to why he had even signed up for this. As someone who valued his own life very highly, he couldn't imagine actually dying. Then again, neither could anybody else who was currently alive.

As he headed back from the mailbox, he thought about taking another shower, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to. It was against the rules, because they had to conserve water; they didn't have an unlimited supply.

The thought made Lance feel slightly guilty for having taken such a long shower, but that was what he had had to do in order to get the smell of the swamp out of his fur. It had taken some forceful scrubbing.

"Hey, Lance" someone near him said.

The Lucario boy turned around to see Claire standing right behind him. Her blue ponytail was dragging on the ground, and she looked very worried indeed.

"Oh. Hello, Claire" Lance replied. "What's up?"

"Not much. Just really nervous about being chosen. What about you?"

"Pretty much the same. I mean, it's not official yet".

"I know" Claire replied. "But it seems pretty likely that we'll be in the top ten in terms of diplomacy points. Which makes me wonder...how are we going to prepare for the meeting? It sounds like we're not going to be given any time at all".

Lance put a paw on Claire's shoulder, although he wasn't fully aware of doing so. The Zoroark girl didn't swat it away the way Lance expected her to.

"I don't know" he replied. "I suppose that we'll cross that bridge when we come to it".

"Yes, we'll have to" Claire said.

"Yeah. If only we did have more time. But we'll go in there, and we'll get the help that we need to kick some Skylock Empire ass. That's what we're going to do" Lance said in a determined tone.

"Indeed" Claire replied. "Lance...come here for a moment".

Lance didn't know what to expect. He braced to be punched, although he couldn't imagine what he would have done in order to warrant that treatment.

Instead, he was kissed.

It wasn't a particularly romantic kiss; it was more the type that his mother would have given him. That said, it sent Lance's mind reeling.

"Thanks. Sorry" the Zoroark girl said, although the Lucario boy was in no state of mind to register what words Claire spoke.

 _Not only does she like me back, but she made the first move!,_ Lance thought rapidly, his brain spinning into overdrive. _This is beyond my wildest dreams._

Back in Sinnoh, Lance had never had a girlfriend. He hadn't ever kissed a female even close to his own age, except for Michaela, but that was different.

However, when he'd first seen Claire, he'd been attracted to her since day one. Now, however…

 _Evidently she's attracted to me as well._

That was a game-changer for Lance. He had a hard time believing that, and, as he walked back to his dormitory, he had to keep pinching himself in order to remember that it was real.

 _This really happened. I really did get kissed by Claire Morrisey. And is this the start of something new? Something more than just friends?_

 _I suppose we'll find out._

His brain, which had short-circuited earlier, was now running in overdrive. He arrived in his dormitory, absolutely breathless.

Troy looked up. "Were you running?"

"No" Lance panted; he'd been galloping on his way back, so that was why he was short of breath. "Just...galloping".

"Did something happen?" Troy asked.

The Lucario boy shook his head. "No...nothing. Nothing happened".

 _He knows,_ Lance thought. _He must suspect something about what just happened._

Troy shrugged. "I don't really care. I think it's about time to go to bed anyway; see you in the morning".

"See you" Lance replied. Indeed, it was almost nine in the evening, and he was completely exhausted after that stressful day. All he wanted to do was sleep.

As soon as Lance's head hit his pillow, he was fast asleep.

He dreamed that he was back in the middle of the hallway, back where Claire had kissed him. It was mostly empty now, and, what was more, the lights were off.

 _That's weird,_ he thought. _Why are the lights off?_

Then he remembered that it was nighttime; he recalled seeing a clock on his way here that said that it was just past one in the morning.

"Hey" said a female voice.

Standing in front of him was Claire Morrisey. The blue-maned Zoroark girl was looking at him in a fairly loving fashion.

"H-hello" Lance stammered. He was more nervous in this dream than he had been in real life.

 _That's weird,_ he thought, _it's only just a dream. What's going on?_

Claire grabbed him forcefully and pulled him in for the kiss. Just as Lance was about to get away, Claire transformed.

Within a couple of seconds, she was no longer Claire Morrisey the Zoroark girl. Now, she was a mechanical Zoroark, much like the mechanical Lucario he'd dreamed about recently, and her eyes looked absolutely murderous.

Lance turned and ran, but Claire was also pretty fast. The Lucario boy could only barely stay one step ahead of her, and he was trying to outsmart her in some way. That was his best chance of escape.

And then the scene changed.

Now, he was standing in the middle of the swamp, on the same sandbar where he had discovered the old radio. This time, it had to be at least two hundred degrees out, and Lance felt as though he were melting.

Despite that, he was somehow able to see; the sun's glare wasn't as forceful as he had feared. As a result, he was able to move around and see where he was going.

A fairly tall teenage girl with long, flowing light brown hair was carrying a spear. She looked vaguely familiar.

 _It's Michaela,_ he realized. _What's she doing here? This is my dream! She doesn't just get the right to invade my dreams like that!_

Lance's sister was pointing her spear directly at his heart, and the Lucario boy instinctively knew, somehow, that, if Michaela threw the spear, she wouldn't miss.

"I'm your brother. Lance" he said as calmly as he could, trying to persuade Michaela to lay off the threat.

Nonetheless, she looked evil still, as though she were about to pounce on him. Which, of course, she was.

With one smooth movement, she drove the spear right into his heart.

And Lance woke up, screaming.

* * *

 **EeveeAbbyYT asks: If Buck is a Ponyta, how can he shoot an arrow?**

 **SnowLucario answers: He stands on his hind legs, and uses his upper legs as "hands". That's how I imagine it, anyway.**

 **fer1323 asks: If you could and wanted to, would you come to South Africa?**

 **SnowLucario answers: I think you answered your own question, fer1323. If I could and wanted to, why wouldn't I?**

 **That was Chapter 22 of Poke Wars, Episode I. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.**


	23. The Meadow

**Sorry for the longer wait for this one. My excuse? Well, really, there isn't one, I was just a little lazy and didn't write as much as I normally did. But it's no matter now, because Chapter 23 has hit the virtual shelves.**

 **I hope you all enjoy.**

* * *

Even though he was trying to control himself, Lance was howling like a wolf who had just been stabbed. That was the level of terror he was in.

 _Calm down,_ he thought. _It's just a dream. Everyone has dreams. Don't be too worried about that._

Even so, the reality of where he was began to sink in as soon as he was fully awake. He remembered that, even if he wasn't in the middle of the jungle now, getting hunted down by any number of beings from the Skylock Empire, he was going to be pretty soon.

 _How soon?,_ Lance wondered. _I don't want to die._

He'd thought of those words a lot, even said them himself on numerous occasions. Now, however, he knew just how true they were. Not only that, but he himself was able to grasp their full meaning at last.

"Whoa, Lance" said Troy.

The Lucario boy looked over at his roommate, who was looking at him incredulously. "I didn't know you could scream that loudly".

Lance put an embarrassed expression on his face, even though he hadn't really meant to. He couldn't believe that he'd given such a loud yell of fear; even he himself hadn't been aware that his voice held that much power.

"I was really loud, wasn't I?" Lance asked awkwardly.

Troy chuckled. "That is quite the understatement. You screamed so loudly that you must have woken up the entire region of Hoenn. Certainly woke me up".

"What time is it?" asked Lance.

There was no clock on the wall, but Troy had brought a watch with him, something that Lance had not bothered to do. "It says here that it's 3:23 in the morning. So, pretty early".

That made the Lucario boy feel rather guilty. He might not have woken up the entire region of Hoenn, but he'd probably woken up more people than just Troy.

"I'm not going to be able to get back to sleep" Troy said. "That was just too loud for me".

Lance clasped his hands together as though he were praying. "I'm really sorry, Troy. I just couldn't help it".

Troy chuckled. "No, man, you're good. There's nothing to worry about, just try not to do it next time. Nightmare?"

Lance nodded. "How did you know?"

"For the most part", his roommate replied, "people above the age of five don't scream that loudly unless they're in terror. But don't worry about that; just try to go back to sleep".

"I think I'm in the same boat as you" Lance replied. "I can't".

Troy shrugged. "Well, that's just the way it goes, I guess. I just hope that your first combat mission comes soon. Once it's over, you'll feel a lot better".

Lance stared at Troy, amazed. "How did you know that's what I was dreaming of? Being in the jungle, forced to fight?"

"You talked in your sleep".

If Lance hadn't been embarrassed before, he certainly was now. He realized that he'd quite possibly just given away the fact that he was in love with Claire.

"Again, though", Troy said, "I really don't mind. But, once you've come back from your first combat mission, you're going to be a lot less worried about everything".

"Have you done a combat mission yet?" Lance asked his roommate. He was pretty sure that, judging by the way Troy was speaking to him, he knew the answer already.

"I have, yes" his roommate replied. "And let me tell you, you are nervous at the beginning. But, once you have survived, you learn that it's not too bad, and you'll be able to do it again. Trust me on that one".

Lance shrugged. "I suppose I have no choice. Not if I don't want to panic constantly for the rest of my time here".

Troy clapped for him. "Nice, Lance. That's the spirit!"

The Lucario boy chuckled. "If you're sure about that...do they provide you with guns and all that stuff?"

"Just rifles and helmets" Troy replied. "No body armor. So it's not like hunting; it's the real deal. If they did give you body armor, they wouldn't have enough for everybody".

 _No body armor._

It was then that Lance began to fear for his life again. In his dreams, the ones in which he was in the jungle fighting, he was never wearing body armor. He was completely vulnerable to any sort of attack, regardless of whether it came in the form of a bullet, an Aura Sphere, some attack from another Pokemon…

"How long are you guys usually in the jungle for a combat mission?" Lance asked Troy. Even though he didn't know how long it would be until he actually ended up going on one, he found himself wanting to know what to expect. He was that kind of person, and he was now that kind of Lucario. Go figure.

"Usually a couple of hours" Troy replied. "So, not too long. That said, they are quite tiring".

"Have you ever been shot?"

Immediately, Lance clamped a hand over his mouth. He couldn't believe that he'd asked Troy such a question; it seemed to Lance, now, that it had been an incredibly personal one, not one that he should have been asking his roommate.

"Why are you sorry?" Troy asked. "It's okay, dude. Get that idea that I'm mad at you out of your head, because I'm _not"._ He said that last word very forcefully.

"Sorry. It just seemed like such a personal question".

"It's not. Don't worry. And no, I have not been. I always managed to get out of the way just in time".

"Wow" Lance replied. "I think that would require a lot of agility".

"Oh, it does" Troy said. "It most certainly does".

His roommate looked as though he thought Lance had been rude by suggesting that Troy wasn't agile. However, that brief moment of tension was just that - brief.

"I suppose that we should try to get some more sleep" Lance replied. "Sorry for waking you up".

"It's no problem" Troy replied. "But remember what I told you earlier? About how I probably would never be able to get back to sleep after that?"

The Lucario boy nodded.

"Well, I'm feeling tired already. So let's get some more sleep, and let's wait and see what happens in the morning, and over the next week. Aren't you near the front of the list in terms of who has the most diplomacy points?"

Lance recalled the number. _Three thousand, eight hundred, and seventy-eight._ "Why, yes" he replied. "I am".

"Excellent" Troy replied. "I think that you would make a great negotiator".

"Why, thank you" Lance said. "I'm glad you think so".

"It's true, you know. That's what I really believe".

Lance didn't give it any more thought. He was pretty sure that his roommate was only saying that for one reason: To make him feel better, nothing more.

"Get back to sleep, Lance" Troy said.

The Lucario boy put his head back onto his pillow and tried to get back to a point where he could sink into a slumber yet again. This time, it was quite difficult, but he managed to achieve sleep after about twenty or thirty minutes.

This time, his dreams were far more pleasant.

* * *

Lance was standing in a meadow, and he was a human again.

Looking down at his chest, he saw that he was wearing a gray shirt that had the image of a Lucario on it.

 _It must have been all a dream,_ he thought. _I was never really a Lucario, forced to be in a military academy. I didn't get chased down and shot by a white-furred Lucario. I didn't really have to go through all of that._

 _Oh, what a relief! For a moment there, I thought that that was my reality. Wouldn't I have been so fucked if it really had been that way?_

The way the sun shimmered on the grass, it must have been late morning. They were surrounded by enormous green hills, with a small town visible on one of them. The town's church steeple was the highest point in the town, and easily the most prominent from here.

 _And I live there,_ Lance thought. _That's my home._

He didn't know why he thought that, but it somehow made perfect sense. He lived in that town on the side of the hill, and, what was more, he'd come down here for a picnic…

 _Yes, I believe that's what it's called._

Visible in the distance, a crystal blue lake spread almost to the horizon. It looked so appealing...all Lance wanted to do was to run over to the lake, jump in, and swim as long as he wished.

And, standing nearby, there was a girl.

This girl was fairly tall and skinny. She wore her hair in a ponytail, as well as glasses. Her hair had been dyed red, even though it was clear to see that it was really brown.

 _I feel like I've seen this girl before,_ Lance thought. Somehow, he was pretty sure of that, in spite of the fact that…

 _It's Claire! Of course it's Claire, Lance, don't be silly. Have you forgotten what she looks like?_

 _And to think...I dreamed that she'd become a Zoroark with a blue mane. That's just crazy; I can't believe that was my dream._

"Claire!" Lance called.

The girl turned around. "Are you Lance? Is it really you?"

The boy nodded. He wasn't a Lucario boy anymore, he was just a boy, and he was very happy that it was this way.

"To think...that was only just a dream, wasn't it?" Claire asked him.

Lance nodded. "That was just a dream".

The two of them ran over and hugged each other. Lance could practically feel her lightly squeezing his rib cage, in a pleasant, playful manner. He was really hoping that it wasn't a dream...it felt too good to be real…

 _And sure enough, it is a dream,_ Lance thought, surfacing back into the real world.

"Morning, Lance" Troy said.

Lance looked down at his body and saw that he was once again a Lucario. No, he wasn't "once again" a Lucario. He'd never been a human again; it had only been a dream.

He felt almost like crying. That would have been a good way for him to release some of his sadness and frustration at the fact that he was stuck in this form. He was going to cry and cry and never stop.

But then he remembered that he was in the company of Troy, his roommate, and that he had to stay strong, or at least appear to. If he didn't keep his composure here, the results would not be pretty.

 _Why does everything pleasant have to be a dream?,_ Lance wondered angrily, directing that question at Arceus above. _It just makes no sense; it's not fair!_

 _Life isn't fair, though,_ said another voice in his head. _Really, you just have to deal with it, because things don't always turn out the way that you want. You should know this by now; you're 18._

Sometimes it was difficult to reckon with the truth, but Lance knew that it was very much necessary if he was going to survive the military.

"Good morning, Troy" Lance replied, managing to keep his voice steady. This was a difficult task indeed, because he could already feel tears forming in his eyes.

"Is anything wrong?" Troy asked him.

Lance couldn't tell Troy the truth. If he did, he might end up embarrassing himself by revealing his attraction to Claire Morrisey. If there was one way to completely and totally humiliate yourself, it was revealing to another person whom you had a crush on.

"No" he replied, tears streaming down his face. "Nothing's wrong".

* * *

As the days went by, Lance didn't forget that dream.

Granted, it wasn't as though it was something even remotely close to possible to forget. Indeed, when you had one that vivid, where you were _so sure_ that it was real, and then it wasn't...well, that was the hardest pill to swallow.

 _It doesn't matter,_ he constantly told himself. _What's going to happen is, you're going to get a chance to ask her out. You're going to get a chance to be in a place like that. Maybe, just maybe, you can find a meadow to hang out in with Claire._

It seemed like the odds were pretty long on that. He was never, not in a million years, going to get the chance to be alone with her. There were just too many people around, too many people who would be aware of every move he made.

 _She already made the first move, though._

Claire might have made the first move already, but Lance knew that it was up to him to keep this going. She might have forgotten, already, that she had kissed him.

 _Maybe she always does this. Maybe she's just playing with me._

Lance really didn't like to think that way. It certainly didn't make him feel good about himself, or her.

One day, about halfway through the second week, Lance was standing in the middle of the dining hall after breakfast. He didn't have any idea what to think anymore; during the last couple of days, he had been completely conflicted about everything.

"Hey, Lance" said a voice nearby.

Lance turned and saw that it was Brad.

The Blaziken still appeared to view the Lucario boy with some trepidation, as if he still had germs on him from the swamp. But it had been several days since he'd been given the antibiotic, and, as of right now, he'd seen no evidence of disease. He was most likely fine.

"Hello" Lance replied. "What's up?"

"Nothing much, just the ceiling".

Lance had always felt a certain level of irritation towards anyone who would respond that way to that question. Nonetheless, he kept a fairly neutral expression.

"Let's get our schedules now. Isn't it day 12 or so?"

"Kind of hard to remember, honestly" Brad replied. "Really, I'm not sure if it's been eleven days or twelve since we got here".

The thing that was kind of scary was that the Blaziken was also speaking for Lance, in a way. The Lucario boy was also not sure for how many days he had been here, but he knew that it had been well over a week. Honestly, they were starting to blend together for him.

 _Which might be their goal all along._

"Yeah...I'm not sure either" Lance replied. "But that's fine. Let's just get our schedules, and worry about that later".

Just like he had ten or eleven times before, Lance got in line to be tattooed with today's schedule. At this point, it seemed like such a mundane, routine thing that he didn't even have any reaction to it.

As soon as he had taken his hand out, he saw what it said. And he wasn't happy about it.

 _0800 - Rucksack Run_

 _0930 - Aquatics_

 _1100 - Lunch_

 _1130 - Rock Climbing_

 _1330 - Paintball_

 _1600 - Field Medicine_

 _1730 - Dinner_

 _1800 - Announcements_

 _1900 - Back to Quarters_

 _2115 - Lights Out_

Lance was highly dismayed to learn that he had a rucksack run, followed by aquatics immediately afterward. That just wasn't something that he would have desired; indeed, he knew that he'd be hurting a lot afterwards.

Not just emotionally, mind you. He'd be hurting _physically_ to an extreme degree, no doubt.

Over the last few days, he had increasingly found that Troy had been correct. The further along he got in his training, the more hellish each day became. He'd already done two rucksack runs, and they weren't fun.

Just like the name implied, a rucksack run entailed carrying a 60-pound rucksack while running laps around a one-mile track out in the jungle. It hurt, and it hurt fast. Thankfully, as long as you were running, rather than walking, they didn't get mad at you. Which was a very good thing.

"Do you have a rucksack run today?" Lance asked Brad. The Blaziken had been right behind him in line to get a schedule, and had looked slightly dismayed that the words had been tattooed onto Lance's left arm in dark red ink.

"Yes" the Blaziken replied. "It takes place at eight. You too?"

 _That question was rather unnecessary,_ Lance thought, _given that you could see what was written on my arm._

"Yep" the Lucario boy said. "Today is going to suck".

The rucksack runs took place at the top of a long flight of stairs that led out to the jungle. Like almost everything in here, it was very difficult to find if you were new here. Even though he'd been here for over a week and a half, Lance still didn't know ten percent of all of this place's secrets, he imagined.

The coach, a Rapidash named Ozzy, said, "All right, guys. You know the drill. Run around the track as many times as you can, while carrying a rucksack. A mile is a lap".

 _Yeah, Ozzy, I know all of these things already,_ Lance wanted to complain out loud. He didn't, of course, because he could only imagine that it wasn't a good idea to question your instructors in the military.

The Lucario boy grabbed one of the rucksacks and started jogging around the track, which must have taken quite some effort to build.

Even though it was only eight in the morning, the temperature was already in the low nineties, and the humidity made it seem even hotter. Lance's legs started cramping before he was halfway around.

Ever since becoming a Lucario, Lance had noticed that he was in better shape than he had been as a human. He'd thought that it would carry over to being able to run while carrying a rucksack, in hot weather. Alas, that was not the case.

Running down the track was difficult enough in these temperatures. There were several inclines, both leading upwards and downwards, which, while they did add variety, were a major nuisance to Lance.

Carrying the rucksack only made things ten times worse. Lance had never been known for his physical strength; he wasn't good at lifting weights, not at all. What was more, running like this made his back hurt, much like his father's did after playing too much hockey.

He supposed that the scenery was pretty enough. A mixture of palm trees, pine trees, and the narrow trees found on the edges of jungles dotted the area, in addition to several types of grasses, all of which shimmered in the morning sun.

Judging by how wet the track was, as well as the ground, Lance figured that it must have been raining here recently, perhaps last night or the previous day. He wouldn't have known if that were the case, because he hadn't been above ground in two days.

Lance could usually run, assuming he was going at his top speed, for two or three miles at most. With a rucksack on, he obviously couldn't go quite as fast. Even so, he was managing, on average, one lap every twelve minutes.

 _That's five miles an hour,_ he thought. _I'm making decent time here, if I do say so myself._

Indeed, Lance was rather proud of himself for being able to keep up that pace. It wasn't easy, but, over the last week and a half, he had definitely gotten in better shape than he had been before. He was able to do better at this than he had ever done in his life.

By the time the ninety minutes were up, he'd made it seven laps around the track. If you asked him, he didn't think that was all that bad. Certainly, it confirmed what he already knew: This military training had been toughening him up.

Once Ozzy said that they could go, the Lucario boy looked back down at his schedule.

 _I have Aquatics next. Fuck._

* * *

 **I didn't get any reviews, so I don't have any questions to answer today. I'm currently sitting at 37 reviews, and my goal is 150, so it should go without saying that I'd like to get a few more. I'll start responding to reviews here, whichever ones I have gotten on the previous chapter.**

 **Enjoy your life, and I'll see you guys next time.**


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